ferrets and mole-rats and flamingos, oh my!

Has anyone been to the National Zoo in Washington? I've never been but I've heard it's wonderful. They have a great website, too, and I've been poking around there in the past couple of days because someone sent me a link to their ferretcam!

The ferretcam is a webcam trained on the home of Georgia, a black-footed ferret. They're one of the most endangered mammals in the world, and Georgia gave birth to a baby, called a kit, six days ago. Right now the kit looks rather like a little white sausage with four stubby legs. Georgia spends most of her time sleeping, because ferrets are nocturnal, but the kit is quite active so there's often something to see.

You can also access other webcams from the National Zoo's website, and there are a lot of very, very cool animals to see. In addition to the webcams, they have some great information on their site about animals from all over the world, good photos, and all sorts of activities and fact sheets.

today's forecast: extreme cold with a chance of dust storms

This is not related to nature on Earth, but...

Has anyone ever wondered what the weather's like on Mars? Now you can find out!

The data comes from the Phoenix Mars Lander, which landed on Mars on May 28, 2008. What's even more cool is that the meteorological station on the Phoenix Mars Lander was developed, built and tested in Canada by the Canadian Space Agency.

Today, when I checked, the maximum Martian temperature for today was -24 degrees Celsius, and the minimum was -70 degrees Celsius! The weather was sunny. Makes me almost glad of our plus 27 degree Celsius temperatures here today!

More Phoenix Mars Lander information:
http://www.space.gc.ca/asc/eng/exploration/phoenix.asp

great nature websites

We're getting some good feedback on the blog so far. Thanks everyone! I'm open to suggestions or ideas, so if you don't see something you'd like to see, please let us know (email or comments) and we'll see what we can do. There are some limits but this platform (Blogger) is pretty flexible.

As I said, I'd also like to use this site as a space to draw your attention to great websites with good, accurate information. A caveat: I have spent time on the following websites and I really like them. That doesn't mean I have fact-checked every single page, or even seen every single page on the website. They do come from trusted sources, but every source can make mistakes -- even books! So always be alert when you're reading something, and if you think something might not be quite right, double-check it with a different source.

All that said, some of my personal favourites:

• FrogWatch -- Need help identifying frogs or toads? This is a great source for Ontario frog and toad pictures and sounds.
  
• The Encyclopedia of Life -- A very ambitious project, this open source (meaning, free info!) website is attempting to catalogue all life on earth. Yep, even bacteria. Experts enter the information, and from what I have seen (for the species I know something about) it's accurate. A great starting point if you have to do a project on a particular species for school, for example!
  
• Cornell Lab of Ornithology -- As a birdwatcher, I think this site is completely awesome. It has links to pictures and species information, bird song, nest cams (see birds raising their young!), bird news... all things ornithological. If you're looking specifically for a picture or info about a specific bird, you'll want to start at the All About Birds Bird Guide.
  

If you have nature websites you really like and would like to include for other young naturalists to see, drop us a comment, tell me what you like about the site, and make sure to give me the address! We do reserve the right to post links or not post links as appropriate, and I should mention that KWFN is not affiliated with the above websites, and is not responsible for the content on the above sites.

A couple of things to know...

Bear with us as we get things going on this website. We're experimenting!

For now, the only people who can send posts directly to the blog are the leaders. If you have a sighting or something you want to share, please send your post to one of us and we'll post it for you. Everyone should have Pat's email address, and I'll make sure everyone gets mine as well. If you lose those addresses, post a comment on any blog entry here; the comments come to my email.

Remember to send us your one favourite photo from the May meeting! Not only would I like to make sure that they get up on the site here so everyone can see how awesome we are, but I'd also like to show those photos at the September meeting of the KWFN club. I think they should see some of the stuff we do!