Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Spring Outdoor Challenge, Cattails



This week we are studying our Spring Cattails (well, we actually are doing Spring Weather, too, since I posted on the wrong week)!  We actually were able to find two places to compare cattails, thanks to my kids eagle eyes!  We have had so much rain, we had a tough time planning this exploration.  There was water several feet out from the cattails, so we could not get really close to examine them without sinking in mud up to our knees. 


We discovered one set is about 8 feet across and still had mostly dead ones from the winter.  It is in a marsh on our Highway right thgouh town.  Do any of my local readers know where these cattails are? 

Joy-Bug, notice her reflection in the water.

The other set of cattails is out in the country around a small pond.  In the winter, it was a pond, but this time water was actually pouring out of it, due to all the flooding.  The baby cattails here were growing more where their were not the dead ones crowding out the sun.  The babies are about 2.5 feet tall.  They are in a ring about 2 feet around the pond.

We discovered that the cattail leaf is smoother on the top than the underneath side.  There is no fruit growing, but the old fruit are still stuck on the top of the dead cattails. We saw a Red-Winged Blackbird eating the fuzzy seeds!  One more bird for Tweet and See. 

Gracie-Girl with her own descriptions!

Tweet and See is this Thursday, with a GIVEAWAY starting that day!  Click here to see other Cattail studies!

Heather

3 comments:

  1. This was a really great cattail study! I love that you noticed the habitat and the plant itself since this will be interesting to note in comparison to the summer observations.

    Love the journal!

    Thanks so much for sharing your study with the OHC.

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  2. A few years back, my children and I disected a cattail so they could see the entirety of the plant. I always try to have them observe from all senses, if possible, so I asked them what did they smell like. Their response was Fruit Loops. Of course, I found that funny. To my amazement, they did have a sweet smell to them.

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  3. This is a great study of cattails!

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