Sunday, September 20, 2009

The early bird gets the worm: IRFD 2009 - 1

... or snails. Or maybe a spider or two.


Leftover shells from bird breakfast. Not under a rock.

Rock Flipping Day 2009 is underway! Posts and photos are coming in, a few as early as Saturday morning, and we've got a great line-up of flippers waiting in the wings.

And there are prizes! Even not completely imaginary prizes! Cephalopodcast, the creator of the original IRFD badge, has made a Junior Award badge; if some of your crew of RockFlippers are under 7 or thereabouts, add this badge to your post. (It might be a good idea to print out copies for each kid, to stick on the fridge or hang on the door ...)

Junior Rock-Flipper Award
Badge, by cephalopodcast.com, under a Creative Commons license. Original, and other sizes, in Flickr IRFD pool.

And now, without more ado, let the show begin!

First up, in the early bird category:
  • From The Natural Capital, hailing from Washington, DC, a grand collection of critters, including a video of frantic ants, with birdsong.
  • Bill Murphy, blogging in Fertanish Chatter, (NY) found an interesting greenish spider with grey socks.
  • Sadly, Pablo from Roundrock Journal, flipped his rock and found nothing at home; just an open front door. I wonder what's living down there?
  • I was out early, too, flipping the landscaping.
  • Julie and her family, Just Playin' Around, flipped paving stones and discovered what they've been walking on. The kids are 2 1/2 and 5; don't forget to add their award to your post, Julie!
Sunday:
  • The Science Goddess, in western Washington, discovers that "the rock is providing habitat services for any number of organisms. I will now have to stop thinking of it as an eyesore by the road." She writes about it in What It's like on the Inside.
  • Kris Abel, CTV's tech expert, checked out a rockbed in the Toronto Music Garden, and found low-tech, silent residents. His photos are also in the Flickr pool.
  • The latest (as of noon today) photos in the pool are by BugLady, of Bug Safari. She is not thrilled with her finds, but I like her spider. I guess what you see every day becomes old hat after a while.
  • Sofia_Alexandra, in Sweden, found ants and loaded them to Twitter. #rockflip The cat doesn't say what he found.
  • Ted Simpkins added photos of a redback salamander to the pool.
  • Roberta, of Growing with Science, found a change in the under-rock habitat after a dry summer in the Sonoran Desert.
  • At Chicken Spaghetti, Susan finds an earthworm and gives us some handy book titles to go along with it.
  • Laura, at Natural Notes, says her photos are Not Much to Look At. On second thoughts, however, they are "kind of neat in their own way."
  • Elizabeth, blogging at Yips and Howls, looks at piles of Oregon basalt, and finds "small critter turds".
  • Hugh, of Rock, Paper, Lizard, makes a determined search through Rip-rap & rubble. He is finally rewarded with a well-camouflaged spider.
  • Nothing. Sort of, says Kate, after flipping rocks in two counties. The dry weather worked to her advantage, though.
  • Andrea, the Dog Geek, found slugs. And more slugs. No dry weather for her!
  • Glass snails from the garden, in Dave Ingram's Natural History Blog.
  • Dave Bonta, at via negativa, weighs in with videoetry: Advice for Prospective Troglodytes.
  • Sarah (at Unplug Your Kids) and her family explored the woods, looking for perfect rocks. She describes the ones they found as, "quite beautiful, volcanic, and full of holes."
  • Ange, from Quebec, added a photo to the Flickr group; are these egg masses? If so, what laid them there?
  • ORCA: Observar, Recordar, Crecer y Aprender, blogging from Barcelona, Spain, found "escarabajos y hormigas,"* and, I think, some springtails. (*That's "beetles and ants".)
  • Will Rees, in North Carolina, goes out herping/'shrooming/rock-flipping. Among his finds; a cottonmouth and other snakes. He also has a valuable tip for anyone hiking in snake country.
  • And here's Seabrooke, at The Marvelous in Nature, with some good info about ants. (She found several species.) And how to tell a centipede from a millipede.
  • From Aotearoa, New Zealand, Pohangina Pete sends the story of a walk in search of rocks (in a drowned totara forest). The garden turned out to be a better bet.
  • MrsJurus, from Centerville, OH, added photos to the Flickr pool The evidence shows she was accompanied by at least one kid.
  • Ontario Wanderer found "a worm in the worm" in one of his flower gardens.
  • Candeiasleal added a woodbug from northern Ontario to the Flickr pool.
  • A couple of toddlers, with Bare Baby Feet, discovered the Ant Queen of Okemos, Michigan, big, red-and-black, and beautiful.
  • And the Pickle family turned up a Spiderman disk and a nickel. That's besides the earthworms and a cool slug.
  • Crickets and a handful of worm. At Crazy Maize World.
  • Dr. Omed broke all the rules. But his beetles are worth looking at, so we'll forgive him. This time.
Late entries:
As the rest of the posts come in, I will update the list. Refresh this page occasionally to see what's new. And don't forget to check the Flickr pool, as well.

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6 comments:

  1. We flipped our rocks last night. This was our first year and it was fun! I've put up a post on my blog about it:
    http://just-playin-around.blogspot.com/2009/09/rock-flipping-fun.html

    ReplyDelete
  2. I just flipped! Come on over and answer the question Have You Flipped A Rock Today?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hey sounds cool, i went out today and found lots of cool stuff. I couldn't access your email for some reason but i've posted my findings of snakes spiders, fungi and more on my blog www.hampsteadwoodworking.blogspot.com Thanks Willy

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  4. Got it, Will. I don't know what went wrong with my e-mail. I've posted your link to the list.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thanks again for organizing the responses to the event. I rarely need motivation to go out and snap pictures of nature, but it was especially fun to know I was in good company.

    ReplyDelete

I'm having to moderate all comments because Blogger seems to have a problem notifying me. Sorry about that. I will review them several times daily, though, until this issue is fixed.

Also, I have word verification on, because I found out that not only do I get spam without it, but it gets passed on to anyone commenting in that thread. Not cool!

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