Bats

By the way this is a Microbat.

Bats.

  Now, believe it or not, bats are part of the fifth day of creation.

 They are mammals,  but so are blue whales, and whales are certainly not part of the fifth day of creation.

  Bats are nocturnal mammals and most bats are no larger then six or seven inches from tip to tip.

  Bats- or most of them do not carry rabies. In the past 40 years only 40 people have gotten rabies from bats.

  People often get scared of bats especially a bat called a vampire bat, but bats are not human eaters and only eat bugs and fruit. Those bats that do eat blood only cut a small hole in the animal while it is asleep.  GOD made it so that the amount that the bat takes is not vital to the survival of that animal.

 Fruit bats pollinate and help to spread that seeds of rare fruit trees by first eating the seed then ...

 Well, we all know what happens next.

 Insect eating bats eat about six hundred insects in one hour, and they feed for about ten hours. All in all that equals 6,000 bugs per bats and there are about 20 million bats in Texas alone so that comes to a whole lot of bugs eaten every night.

There are about 900 species of bats.

  The bat is equipped with sharp little claws that allow it to hang upside down for long hours with no effort at all.

 So that's a little on bats for now.

Last day on Birds

Well, this is the last day on birds.
And for the last post on birds it will be about one of my favorites.
The Wood Pecker.
Now this might sound odd, but I think that this one of the most amazing Birds that GOD ever Made.
Okay, so it rams it's beak into a tree at - I don't know how fast, they bam their beak hard in, to be able to penetrate the bark of the tree and still don't get a headache. That's because GOD gave him a cushion in the back of it's scull that protects that little birds' poor brain from being shaken half way to Timbuktu.
If this isn't enough, the woodpecker then sticks its long sticky barbed tong into the tree and scoops out the insect.
So, how dose the Woodpecker keep the bark out of it's nose?
Well, GOD made the Woodpecker with tufts of feathers over it''s nose so that the bark wont go in.

CLASS: Aves (birds)

ORDER: Piciformes (woodpeckers)

FAMILY: Picidae (woodpeckers)

GENUS/SPECIES: Dryocopus pileatus

NAME OF ONE IN PICTURE Redheaded Woodpecker

Beaks Vs. Bills

For a very long time I have been wondering what the differences is between Beaks and Bills.
 But at long last I have found out.
 A Beak is sharp much like that of a Hawk. And a duck has a Bill flattish and often looks rather rubbery.
 Birds of the water have Bills and the others have Beaks!
Bills are most commonly used for scooping up small fish and other stuff from under the water. (This is why ducks and other water birds have them.)

 Beaks are used for cracking nuts and catching prey.

What do you think this bird has? A bead or a Bill.

So there you have it. The difference between BEAKS and BILLS.

How Is It that birds can fly?

    20. Then GOD said, "Let the waters abound with abound with an abundance of living creatures , and let birds fly above the earth across the fave of the firmament of the heavens"     21So GOD created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the water abounded according to their kind and every winged bird according to its kind And GOD saw that it was good.

SO, how dose a bird fly and where do bugs come into this?
This is how a bird is able to take flight.

 

Think you could do that?

Probably not.

 Well, whole thing is a a bird's fly muscles, and they are located in the bird's chest.

When you eat a chicken chest that is what you are eating.

You a Probably rethinking what you eat off of a chicken and Turkey. 

Well, the pink little thing is one of the chest bones of a bird.

The orange is humerus and it's attached to the wing part.

The light green smaller muscles is what conducts the up stroke and the dark red larger muscles

is for the down stroke.

Pretty cool!

Pictures by E.G. Pritchett. Please do not take without consent from me.

A Saturday Picture #3 Michael

Michael finds himself so cute.

Happy Birthday Ryan!!!

Our sweet brother brother is now twelve years old!!!

 I hope you have a very happy birthday Ryan.

And turning into a man.

And, yet.. never is too busy to have fun with his brother and sisters.

Our family of girls really did even know that foot ball excited until Ryan and his love for Auburn came along.

He defiantly keeps us laughing.

Ryan was so happy when his little brother came along.

Eggs

  GOD designed each part of an egg with a purpose .

  The Shell(Dark Purple) protects the egg and keeps it together. There are tinny holes in the Shell that allow gas to go out and air to go in. The Shell has millions of holes covering the Shell. These are called Pores.

   

  The Outer shell membrane(Light Pink.) protects the egg from mold, mildew, and other kinds of bacterias. You can find this part when you peel the outer shell off of a hard boiled egg.

  Then you have the Inner membrane (Still Light Pink) this acts as a back up for the outer Membrane.

Next is the Albumen. (Yellow). This the white part of the egg that you eat. This watery stuff acts as a shock absorber, it protects the Embryo and keeps it from drying out.

  

The Chalazae (Reddish Orange) holds the Yolk and keeps it from just floating around. If you find one of these in your egg it means that your egg was fresh. -Exceptions are made.

Next is the Yolk. (Orange) This is the part that you eat. The Yolk is not the part that turns into a bird. People often get the two confused. That is the Embryo - but we get to that in a second.

The Yolk is the Embryo's source of food while it's growing in the egg. (Eventually the bird/ reptile will grow to fully fit the egg.) 

NOW the Embryo. (Black dot in the center of the Yolk.) This is the - animal~to~be. It really doesn't do much but grow and eat.

  

And last- The Air Sack. (Light Green) When the bird is ready to start breathing air, it squarms around and bumps into the Air Sack with it's Egg Tooth and breaks this sack. When you crack an egg you can most often find this Sack.

 

An Egg

Both pictures were drawn by E. G. Pritchett.

A Cool Fact!!

So, humans only have five senses: Tasting, hearing, feeling, seeing and smell.
 Well, did you know that cats have six?
 I'll bet you didn't.
 Well they do and their sixth comes from their whiskers. Now cats are able to see very well in the dark when there is a little bit of light, but when it is absolutely dark they mostly rely upon their whiskers to sense the slightest movement in the air.
A cat will also not go into any opening if their whiskers touch the sides.

                                                                                 

This applies to all cats.

A Lion

A Jaguar

A Leopard

And there is your cool fact of the day.

A Saturday Picture #2 Aravis

This is a picture I took of our kitten Aravis when I was out side one day and she was just goofing off like a little kitten. After a while she lay down on a shovel and let me take her picture.

Feathers

 There are many parts of feathers:

• The Vanes (This is how you spell vanes on feathers.)
• The Shaft
• The Quill

 These are the main parts.

 The Vanes are the soft part of the feather that if you rub the wrong way the break apart.
If you get a magnifying glass and a flash light and a feather and looked very carefully at the vanes you can probably be able to see tiny little hairs lining the vanes. When you rub the Vane the wrong way they come apart but if you rub then the opposite way the stick back together.
Well this is caused by tiny little barbs attached to the vanes.

The Barbs hook on to vanes without barbs. These are called Barbules.

 
The Shaft is is the poll that runs down the length of the feather and all the vanes attach to it.

It's made out of a substance called Keratin. (Rhinoceros horns and animal claws are made of this as well as your fingers nails.)

The Quill is the tip of the quill that attaches to the bird. (It used to be used for writing because the quill could usually hold a small amount of ink.)

When you see a bird about to get into the water it will rub it's self with it's bill and then get in.
This is called preening and ducks, swans and gees will do this to oil and zip their feathers to block out the water and to stay afloat.

It really is quite amazing.

•  Now... when you are holding a feather you can break the little hairs a part and then when you rub them  the stick back together.

A Rainy Day.

There are many things you can do on a rainy day.

One of my favorite things is to build dominoes into huge towers and castles and and then knocking the dominoes all down.

As For science... I am not really sure what  dominoes are made of but they make a really loud bang when they hit the table, but they're a lot of fun.

 Here is something that Sarah and I built.