Outdoor Hour Challenge -Bees and Trees

On today's nature walk we didn't set out to look for bees. We headed out to study a tree. Our FIAR book this week talks about Sycamore trees and after looking them up in my tree field guide, I remembered seeing one in our neighborhood. When I showed a picture of a Sycamore tree to my kids they said it was just like a Sweet Gum tree because of the balls that hang on it. I told them that since we have a bunch of Sweet Gum trees along our street and at least one sycamore tree nearby we would go out and compare the two trees. We went first to the sycamore tree.
Sophie examined the bark and even pulled a little piece off, since it peals off easily.
I collected a leaf and a few of the balls.
We carried them along with us until we came across a sweet gum tree. The kids all examined the bark. We couldn't collect a sample, this bark wasn't coming off. We did gather a few of the sticker balls that are always scattered around under the sweet gum. We then compared the two leaves and the two different balls. The leaves actually look somewhat similar but the balls don't really look the same at all. Even when they are green and still hanging in the tree. But I thought it was good that the kids made the original assumption so that we could really examine these trees. I know we won't get them mixed up anymore.

Along our walk we also noticed a few plants that were just recently blooming again. The bottle brush bush bloomed in the Spring and is now just bursting out again. We noticed a whole lot of bees there too. They must really get excited when these late summer flowers bloom. I can tell we have read the Magic School Bus book Inside a Beehive (as well as many others about bees) a lot because all the kids thought that these flowers were the last chance for these bees to gather all the nectar that they need to make it through the winter.

We passed our "Humming bush" of rosemary and it too is blooming a second time this year. And it was humming again. We sat and watched those bees a long time. How nice of these flowers to appear again right before Fall so the bees can "stock their shelves".

Sophie got very excited to show me this beautiful patch of flowers that had a bunch of butterflies fluttering around.
I still don't have a insect field guide so I don't have any idea what kind of butterfly this is. Sophie and I did take a good look at these butterflies to see if they were skipper butterflies like we saw on our last walk. They weren't holding their wings the same way as the last ones. These butterflies held their wings straight up behind them and not at different angles like the others did.

It was a lovely afternoon walk/ scooter ride. We always see so many fun things just walking around our block.