Whooping Crane

Posted on October 15, 2010 by Raymie

This is a whooping crane.  Whooping cranes are the tallest birds in North America.  The whooping crane is not the most endangered bird in the whole world, but it used to be.  Fifty years ago, there were only about 20 of them left.  The International Crane Foundation in Baraboo, Wisconsin is working to save the cranes, and now there are over 500 whooping cranes in the world.

The whooping cranes have a really neat cage at the International Crane Foundation.  You can go in and sit down and watch the cranes walk around and drink from a pond right in front of you.  While we were there last Saturday, we made a movie of one of them walking across the pond.  On the movie, you can hear my little sister Evie talking about the crane:

Whooping Crane walking on Vimeo.

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Aphids

Posted on October 14, 2010 by Raymie

While we were raking leaves under our paper birch tree, we saw that we had little bugs on us.  We looked up at the leaves on the tree, and we saw these aphids all over the leaves.  I think there were thousands of them in our tree.  We looked them up in our bug book, and we are guessing that they are cotton aphids, but we are not sure.  Cotton aphids change color depending on the season: in spring they are light yellow, dark green in the summer, and dark brown or black in the fall.  We caught a bunch of them and put them in the bug playground with our ladybug for food.  Ladybugs eat aphids and black flies.

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Sarus Cranes

Posted on October 13, 2010 by Raymie

During our visit to the International Crane Foundation, when we got to the sarus cranes, they were dancing. We made a short movie of their dance:

Sarus cranes are from Australia, India, and Southeast Asia.  It was a lot of fun to watch their pretty dance, and I hope you like it, too.  Why do you think they have red heads?  Leave a comment and let me know what you think.

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Multicolored Asian Lady Beetle

Posted on October 12, 2010 by Raymie

This is a multicolored Asian lady beetle.  We found it yesterday crawling on our kitchen counter.  Usually these have lots of spots, but this one only has 2 little spots.  You can see one of the spots in this picture.  We thought this was unusual, but then we found a different one with just those 2 little spots also. See that white string in the picture?  I think that is a little piece of fuzz that it picked up on our kitchen counter.

These beetles sometimes bite.  You can see its big pinchers in this picture that it uses to eat aphids.

They are originally from Asia, but now they live in America.  I think someone brought vegetables with aphids on them, and then the beetles came with the vegetables.

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Banded Woollybear

Posted on October 11, 2010 by Raymie

This is a banded woollybear moth caterpillar.  My great uncle Jim caught it for me.  He got it on the side of his apartment building.  There were lots of them climbing up the side of his building after they sprayed the grass.  I think it’s cute.  I named it “Caterpillar.”

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Black Crowned Crane

Posted on October 9, 2010 by Raymie

Today we went to the International Crane Foundation.  It is a really cool place with cranes from all around the world.  We took lots of pictures and even some video and you’ll be seeing more cranes here soon.

This is the black crowned crane from Africa.  It was friendly and came right up to the fence to see us.  When it gets nervous, it ruffles up its feathers a little bit.  I like the crown on its head.  Out of all 15 crane species in the world, only 2 of them have that kind of a crown.  The color of its crown is sand tan.

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Creamsicle

Posted on October 8, 2010 by Raymie

This is my pet creamsicle lyretail molly.  Its name is Creamsicle.  It is mean to other mollies, so right now it is our only molly.  It eats algae and dried flakes.  Lyretail mollies have a very distinctive tail.  Its color is the color of creamsicle yogurt, which is yummy.  We got it from Petco on May 8, 2010, which just happens to be my little sister’s birthday.

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Orbweaver

Posted on October 6, 2010 by Raymie

I saw this spider today while we were looking for a geocache.  We think it is some kind of orbweaver, but we don’t know what species it is.  It was cool.  I like the web.

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Blue and Gold Macaw Tattoo

Posted on October 5, 2010 by Raymie

This is a blue and gold macaw.  I’m wearing this tattoo right now! I got it from the Kaytee table at the Fox Valley Family Expo.

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Welcome to Raymie’s Zoo!

Posted on October 5, 2010 by Raymie

Welcome to my new website. There isn’t much here yet, but soon I will post lots of fun pictures and words about animals I meet.

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