May 21

White tailed Kites

Hunting kite

This is a white-tailed kite.

White-tailed Kites are birds of prey. It is sometimes referred to as the “Black-Shouldered Kite”. It is an amazing bird, it looks like a Black-Shouldered Kite, it has a similar hunt strategy as a Kestrel or an Osprey, and hunts small animals that are easy to catch. It is the most amazing bird I’ve ever seen!

Now I think you might be wondering what White-Tailed Kites look like. The White-Tailed Kite has two black and grey wings, a white tail, a white body, and a white head. Its beak is yellowish orange, like its feet.Overall light gray/white body with black shoulders, black area around eye, short black hooked beak, black carpal patches, red eye, pointed wings, 14 to 15 inches in length, 40 inch wingspan. The baby Kites look a little bit different from the adults. The baby Kites are have a lot of brown on their bodies.

The White-Tailed Kites have a similar hunt strategy as the American Kestrel. White-Tailed Kites hunts by hovering in place. It will hover up to 100 feet high above its prey, swoop down really fast so its prey won’t run away and hide. White-Tailed Kites hunt rodent, snakes, small birds, amphibians, and other small creatures that are easy to catch.

White Tailed Kites live in grasslands, marshes, savannas, and other open land.  White Tailed Kites lay 3-5 eggs with lots of brown spots. Their nest is made out of twigs and sticks and outlined in grass. Their nest is usually build in a tall tree near water. Most of White-Tailed Kites live in South America. Here are some Places You Might Find White-Tailed Kites in San Diego. Mission Trails Park, San Diego Rose Canyon, University City Poway Santa Ysabel area.

Now you know how White-Tailed Kites look, how White-Tailed Kites hunt, where White-Tailed Kites live, and where you might find one. Next time you see something flying with a white body, black/grey wings, chances are that the bird is a White-Tailed Kite.

Photo Credit: Jack Wolf via Compfight

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May 21

Rose Canyon

Rose Canyon

Do you ever feel like escaping the city and getting back to nature? Well you can. We have a lovely open space right on our doorstep called Rose Canyon.  Last week we went to Rose Canyon for a field trip and let me tell you about Rose Canyon.

How big is Rose Canyon? Where is it? Rose Canyon is a seven acres of open space or park. It’s just west of La Jolla and interstate 5. few miles from Pacific Ocean. South of Sorrento Valley north of Bay Park. Rose Canyon  has a creek called “The Rose Canyon Creek”.  The creek is 30 miles.

There is a variety of animals in the Rose Canyon. Some of the animals in Rose Canyon are spiders, bugs, owls, ravens, hawks, birds, snakes, rats, wood rats, bees, and coyotes.

 What plants live in Rose Canyon? There is all different kinds of plants. Some are poison oak, dead trees, black sage, white sage, oaks, oak apple gall, willow trees, and wild cucumber. The animals that are in rose canyon love to eat the plants in Rose Canyon.

Rose Canyon is a family friendly place the animals have adapted to the surroundings. They’re plants, animals, and homes.

 

 

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May 21

Amazing Red-Tailed hawk

 Soaring HighIf you see a beautiful bird with a red tail it might not be a cooper hawk but it is a Red-tailed Hawk. The red tailed hawk lives in Rose Canyon. It helps our in environment by eating rodents like mice and rats. I lives in tall trees like sycamore and oak trees.

What does a Red-tailed Hawk looks like? It always has a red tail and many more earth colors like brown. It weighs about 1.5 to 3.5 pounds and 2 to 3.5 feet. It has a sharp beak and sharp talons like claws fro grabbing its prey. The red tailed hawk a very colorful birds that makes them handsome.

How does it get its food and how does it kill it? It flies around in circles in the air and looks for it prey. When it find a creature it swoops down silently at 120 miles per hour and grabs it, puts in its nests, and eats it.

What about red tailed hawk’s life cycle?  The red tailed hawk lays its eggs and it waits for a long time for the babies to hatch. When finally the eggs hatch  they come out like tiny little birds called eyas. They waddle around then the red tailed hawk gets a mouse and brings it home for the eyas. After a few months they are old enough to learn to fly and hunt themselves. Then when they are almost one the fly away and live by themselves.  That is the life cycle of a red tailed hawk.

Now you know all about a Red-Tailed hawk how it eats and how it looks like and so on. If you like my post go to these links and soon you will know everything about red-tailed hawks http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Red-tailed_Hawk/id.

Creative Commons License Photo Credit: Vineet Radhakrishnan via Compfight

 

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May 21

Woodrats

 

Wood rat

Rose Canyon is full of wild animals. Some are large and some are small. One of the small ones is a wood rat.There are 3 different type wood rats in California its desert wood rat, white throated wood rat and dusky footed wood rat.Wood rats are bigger than mice and i would also say cutter then rats.  The wood rat lives in low hot dry deserts or live in dens the dens can be made out of sticks or twigs. Wood rats look a little different from normal rats but they are still rodents.Wood rats can have two different names one of them is Pack rats and the other one is called trade rats. Do you know why they call them pack rats?They call them pack rats because they get stuff and they never get rid of it and the word pack means never get rid of.

Wood rats are small rodents. Each kind of wood rat looks a little different by color and size. The Dusky Wood rats are about 11 to 16 inches long and weigh about 10 to 16 ounces.  That’s about the size of a regular ruler and as heavy as two i Phones. The color of wood rats can be black and grey. Wood rats have large oval ears. They have pink noses and round, black eyes.  They live for about three years.

Wood rats eat twigs, seeds, fruits,acorns,cactus,nuts,berries, and roots but be careful because they are going to try to eat your food.

By Peterson B Moose, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

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May 21

The Wonder Of Crayfish

Have you ever seen a small creature that looks like a mini lobster? That is probably a crayfish and they are small creatures. They live in many places. They have small pincers and are an interesting animal in many ways.

Crayfish mostly live in Europe and New Zealand but throughout the world. They do not survive in saltwater. They live in fresh water like lakes, rivers, streams, and ponds. They are common under rocks and in dark places.

Some times they look like mini lobsters. The crayfish is normally a shade of red, gray and black. Crayfish are usually about 5 inches to 6 inches.

Have you ever wondered if a crayfish is related to a crab? Well it is and they are animal cousins.

I hope you learned something about crayfish. Also check out http://mackers.com/crayfish/ and animal.discovery.com/marine-life/crayfish-info.htm for more information.

Crayfish

A crayfish looks like a lobster.

Creative Commons LicensePhoto Credit: Sean Munson via Compfight

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May 21

Coyotes, the wild dogs

Coyote (Parc Nature Bois-de-Liesse)Coyotes live in Rose Canyon, our local canyon in San Diego. I picked coyotes because they’re amazing creatures. Coyotes are wild animals..  I’m going to tell you about coyotes and what they eat, what they look like, and what they eat.

A coyote has white and brown fur. It has sharp ears and  looks like a dog and it has a tail. If you think a coyote looks like dog, it is a dog. That’s because they are a member of the dog family but it’s not a dog.

snarl

Coyotes live in grasslands, deserts, and cold climates.Coyotes lives all in North America so that doesn’t mean you can find a coyote in Egypt or China. So a coyote lives in a nature park, San Diego, Canada, and all over south America.

Do you know what a coyote eats?  They eats birds, mice, voles, lizards, insects, garbage, and almost anything. What I mean of almost anything I mean like a mouse, deer, and even birds. Coyotes hunt in packs and whenever they kill their prey they howl and howl and howl and how they kill their prey they pounce on them and bite them. Do you want to know if coyotes hunt in packs? Yes they do. They first chase the prey then they surround it and attack it.

I hope you enjoyed my post about coyotes and what they eat, where it lives, and how it looks like. My opinion on coyotes are they are interesting animals. They are interesting animals because they have a population that’s not going down which means they are NOT an animal that are about to be extinct.

Here is a link that has information about coyotes: http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/animals/creaturefeature/coyote/

Creative Commons License Photo Credit: Emmanuel Huybrechts via Compfight

Creative Commons License Photo Credit: matt knoth via Compfight

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