Spring is sprung

One of my classes is being taught at the Morton Arboretum. It’s offered through ACCA (Associated Colleges of the Chicagoland Area) and the Arboretum’s College Botany program. The class is Plant-Animal Interactions.

There’s a post that will come that looks at some of the assignments the students are doing (a mix of high and low tech), but that’s not what this post is about.

Today I was there with students to look for herbivory. Given the early spring around here (blooms are at least a month ahead), they found a fair bit from the reports I heard. (They have a week to write up and submit the lab report.) I was armed with a digital SLR and a macro lens (105mm), and spent most of the lab time looking for things to take pictures of (mostly birds and flowers), and continued for a few more hours.

Some pics are below. More are on Facebook, if you’re there and have friended me. And yes, this is an excuse to post something to this blog again… (I did post some of these to the class blog as well.)