I fully intended to get some decluttering and basic cleaning done today, since my dad and his wife are arriving tomorrow for a visit. Instead, I found myself pulled down two delightful rabbit trails.
This morning, JediBoy wanted me to sit and watch the birds with him. He added a few treats to the feeders and then got out our Celebrate Urban Birds clipboard and took the data himself! It was midmorning and not the best time for birds at our feeders - local traffic was high - so the only species he saw from our checklist was the American Crow, but he also saw several Juncos and a White-Throated Sparrow.
I had never heard about the polymorphism of the White-Throated Sparrow before, but JediBoy and I found it fascinating. Basically, in the spring, two color varieties of the white-throated sparrow appear - as in the picture above - the tan stripe and the white stripe. But they are not, as we originally assumed, colored based on gender. There are males and females of both tan and white stripes (in the spring). Even more interesting is the fact that white-stripe sparrows tend to seek out tan-stripe mates, but scientists are not sure why.
We read about this, looked it up online, and talked about it for a long time. I realized I’d never really talked about basic genetics with JediBoy. He suggested that when they had babies, the stripes would be a tannish-white mixture of the two. So I asked him what would happen if a man with brown eyes and a woman with blue eyes had a baby, and he said the baby’s eyes would be in between brown and blue. (Then I had him look in the mirror!) We talked a little bit about traits and genetics, and we were both deeply interested.
We saw a white-stripe sparrow first, but later saw one tan-stripe - and then the white-stripe, and then the tan-stripe, so we are guessing they may be a mating pair. What fun!
I really did try to get back to cleaning this afternoon, but Paula and Ben wanted to meet us at the park.
It was such a beautiful day that we couldn’t say no. Besides, how could we turn down the chance to go to our favorite park two days in a row? We all had so much fun playing in the stream. The boys built dams and floated a plastic boat to see how far it would go or whether it would get stuck. BabyGirl learned to throw rocks into the water to make a splash, and then begged me to splash her head over and over! We all had a mini-picnic with fruit flats and honey nut o’s, and enjoyed the gorgeous weather.
I can always clean later. I can’t have a day like this again.
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