Outdoor Hour Challenge - House Fly

It shouldn't be too much of a challenge to study house flies. We almost always have one or two chasing around the house because I have kids that can't seem to remember to shut the door. But I couldn't find one this morning when we sat down to actually study them. Good thing I had googled pictures of flies and printed out a few, including a life cycle diagram. Sophie saw my print out and thought they were perfect to add to her Animal Journal that she did for her Kindergarden school year. There are plenty of pages left in the book continue adding new animals. Ian cut out the pictures and glued them into the book. Sophie made a drawing of a fly to add. And I read a few interesting facts to them from the Handbook of Nature Study. We were fascinated by how quickly they reproduce. A full grown fly only 12 days after the eggs are laid. After this study I think I going to be much more diligent about keeping these pests out of my house.

We headed out for a walk after our fly study to see what other insects we could find.

We did some flies while out and we always stop to smell and look at the flowers we pass along our way. This particular flower was just beautiful and huge. I had to make sure my daughter's hand was in the shot so I could compare it to the size of the flower. Ever since we learned about snap dragons a few weeks ago we spot them everywhere and the kids love to make them snap open and shut.

Along our walk we saw some bees buzzing around the flowers and some yellow jackets in the morning glories like we did last time but we got really lucky and saw these.....
Sophie knew they were moths because they folded up their wings behind them. We don't have a insect field guide (I need to find a good one) so I have no idea what kind of moth these are. But we were thrilled to see them.
There were three of them fluttering around this bunch of yellow flowers. There must have been something good in those flowers because they kept coming back even after my kids tried to catch them a few times.

We also sat and watched this big black bee visiting this interesting flower. I think it is some kind of carpenter bee.
The bee would go inside the group of petals that were all stuck together and come out and go back inside. We all sat and watched it at work for a long time.
Look at these fuzzy legs. I need to figure out what kind of flower this is. It was lovely.

Our walk led us to a friend and neighbors house. They happened to be outside and invited us to their back yard to pick a few apples off their tree. A little tree climbing is always welcome.
And apples to take home as well as snack on while we walk the rest of the way home was great!

It was a lovely little nature walk and we enjoyed being outside this morning.