What's your favourite nature thing?

Discussion in 'Off Topic' started by Helén, Sep 6, 2007.

  1. Helén

    Helén Posting Queen

    What's your favourite nature thing?

    Thought we could share interests re animals, plants, nature, gardening..... Whatever that's natural. Also our experiences, questions etc anyone can have about it. Also it's iteresting to get to know more about the "fauna and flors" of different parts of the world.

    I'm crazy about animals and nature.
    My favorite tree are birch.
    My favorite wild flowers are: lily-of-the-valley and the field blue-bell.
    My favorite house plants are: african violets, pelargoniums, hibiscus and hoyas. I collect them. :D To see some of the over 65000 different african violets: http://www.avsa.org/ go to photographs and choose a letter....
    My favorite animals are: all except cockroaches, mosquitos and wasps...

    Some of the wild animals near me: wild boar, roe deer, moose, hare, fox, red squirrel, badger, beaver and lotsa birds. The magpies are a nuisance tho. They steel the small birdies food and are actually mean to my guinea pigs when I have them in outdoor cages. But they can be SO much fun... :D

    Our own animals: The cat, Margit. My guinea pigs (for the moment approx. 70 of them), and my 4 rabbits.... We also thinking of getting a dog.....
     
  2. JohnEZ

    JohnEZ The Mac Guy

    I'm not crazy about animals and nature, but I love dogs. :)
    I love rainstorms.
    I'm not so much a fan of wild flowers, but I love roses.
    I hate insects. :)

    Yeah, I'm a kind of indoors guy... but that's just me. :)
     
  3. Mirelly

    Mirelly Active Member

    I have had a lot of close encounters with Nature this week.

    I cut down the ivy (hedera helix) from the south-eastern corner of Mirelly Towers, this week. It was getting under the roof tiles (don't worry, I have no head for heights, I live in a bungalow) so it had to go. Man I never saw so many spiders.

    This evening I was vegging out on the sofa after eating too much chicken pie and my feline companion brough home a wee mouse. I showed a lot of interest and this caused her selfish instincts to kick in and take it back outside immediately. I followed and distracted puss with a twig and bit of cobweb until the mouse made its escape into the shrubbery.

    Favourite tree: it's not native to the UK, but they're popular front garden ornaments over here anyway, and they make spectacular specimens when they grow to 30 feet or more. The Monkey Puzzle tree araucaria araucana

    Favourite wildflower: gotta be the cowslip, making a welcome return after decades of decline.

    Favourite house plant: darn it I seem to kill anything I bring indoors. I'm very partial to fuchsias of all sorts, though.

    Favourite animals: leaving aside the fact that I adore all creatures of the cattish persuasion, I adore to sit and watch the various waterfowls that stop over to rinse their plumage in some of our fine Black Country cut water. Oh yeah and horses ... I could spend all day with a horse and not get bored.
     
  4. Helén

    Helén Posting Queen

    Lol JohnEZ, not bad at all though. For being an indoor person you seem to have a thing for nature as well.
    Cowslip (had to check the link) grows wild here and I also have pretty many in my garden. it's my favourite flower no 3 actually. It's absolutely lovely. Fuchsias are great - but those I have a nack to kill. Probably because I can't give them the right winter rest.... :cry: Pelargoniums and Saint Paulias (African violets) and many other indoor plants - no problems at all.

    Anyone else? Josh??? :p

     
  5. muffin-tacos

    muffin-tacos Queen of Xeex

    I love nature. It's so beautiful. I live in a flat on a small mountain by the forest. If I look out of the window next to me, I see all the tree tops. It's so pretty! (I should remember to take a picture of it and stick it here.)

    My favourite tree is also birch (we got a lot of those here) but I like some species of pine trees as well. Take a look at this pic for example. Gorgeous! (The pine trees and the rest of the pic.)

    My favourite flowers are probably the rare twin flower (I'm named after them in swedish. I think Heln will know what I mean. :p) and violets - check the link and take a look at the pic. It's beautiful! But they smell horrible though.

    We have deers living in our forest, there's a badger/fox den near us (we think that it belonged to badgers before and the foxes have taken it over now) and there was an elch living in our forest before too! :eek:
     
  6. Odinmoon

    Odinmoon Creator of organised mess

    Mmmm a Muffin flower. I'll have to look that one up.:rolleyes:

    I love all of nature. I don't have favorites. I think? :confused:.
    I love the rain forests of far north Queensland. And the Stag horns and Lian's and ferns and the Strangler fig.
    I don't like stinging plants. They burn for 36 hours. And some people have died from the pain. I had a taste of it.:mad:

    I also love the ocean and fish and and and. Oh I love the whole Blooming lot.:)
     
  7. Helén

    Helén Posting Queen

    Yes Muffin. Linneae Borealis. A small, tiny forest flower that's hard to detect in the moss. :) I named my daughter after that flower - Linna. The flower is named after Carl von Linn, who were the first to really investigate, catalogize and divide plants into female-male... It's now 300 years ago since he died and he's world famous amongst the botanic people in the world. I've seen it growing wild. :) I also saw it in a botanic garden for sale! But it demands a very specific soil and living conditions and it's very fragile. (My daughter is anything but fragile... lol) I also love the violets. I have loads in my garden.

    Odin - sounds like me... I love all about nature although I think there's a couple of insects we could do without. lol But those are ot the endangered ones...
    :ermm:
     
  8. Vega

    Vega New Member

    I love everything about Nature and i mean really everything even those creepy insects are lovely to me :D that's why i'm studing biology and i think i will chose botanic in the end because plants are amazing and i love flowers :)

    My favorite flower is daffodil and i love all the trees and to watch the wind playing with their leafs :p I like the rain and the wind and spring mornings.

    My favorite animals i think i would say orcas and polar bears, but i also like spiders :D oh and i love my two cats :)

    Yea Carl Von Linn was a great person, he also created the system we use today to classify all species and i think it was him too who decided that we should use Latin and two words to name a specie, like Orcinus orca (BTW when you write the name of a specie don't forget to put it in italic :))
     
  9. muffin-tacos

    muffin-tacos Queen of Xeex

    Oh, I love daffodils too! We used to have lots of them in our garden in England. They were lovely. My cousin and I used to *ahem* eat them--and I hear they're kind of poisonous too. :p LOL, kids... :rolleyes:

    That's really cool, Heln! Then me and your daughter have the same name. LOL Moon; muffin flower. That's a good one. I wonder if you can find anything interesting if you google 'muffin flower'. :D
     
  10. Odinmoon

    Odinmoon Creator of organised mess

    Well yes. You use wholemeal flower to make wholemeal Muffins. :D
     
  11. muffin-tacos

    muffin-tacos Queen of Xeex

    You are too funny, Moon. Hear that? You're too funny! I nearly died of uncontrolable giggles. My sister was giving me the "you're crazy" look. :p
     
  12. Lynet

    Lynet New Member

    I laughed, too, Odinmoon.

    I love watching nature--chipmunks, squirrels, birds, deer, the flowers and trees. All of them. The sheer size of trees takes my breath away. They are living things. They breathe. They sleep and wake. I'd rather have my windows open and listen to nature (especially the sound of the trees) than have a radio or TV playing. I try to do that as often as weather permits.
     
  13. Helén

    Helén Posting Queen

    You're right Vega about the latin. Also. That's great plans for you education. :D Isn't it lovely to lay under a tree and look up towards the sun and see the glitter in the leaves when they move for the wind?
    Must remember to try that "googling" muffin... Wouldn't be surprised if I found something.. :) But now it's time to sleep. Night all. :bunny:
    :zzz:

     
  14. surprised_by_witches

    surprised_by_witches Sleep deprived

    I like spiders.

    As long as they don't touch me. :wideeyed::wideeyed:
     
  15. Helén

    Helén Posting Queen

    Lol!
    Did you know that all spiders, regardless of size are venomous? (sp?) And they can all bite - the proper size of prey. Here we have plenty of different sized spiders - but they always run away when you close in too much. Well... Not if they're on their web waiting for prey. :p
    I wouldn't want to hurt one of those huge spiders, but they can't stand our climate so.. They can bite you and give you all sorts of probs. But our spiders here wouldn't really be able to hurt you.
    Some mornings when I go out in the garden I can see the most beutiful webs here and there. And when they're wet with dew they shine in the sun like jewels. SO beutiful! :bunny:
     
  16. Odinmoon

    Odinmoon Creator of organised mess

    We have many dangerous spiders here. One is the Sydney funnel web.Atrax robustus. Can kill you in 20mins. :D it can sit in the bottom of you swimming pool for hours, and you think its dead and then it bites you.
    These spiders are medium-to-large in size, with body lengths ranging from 1 cm to 5 cm (0.4" to 2"). They are darkly coloured, ranging from black to brown, with a glossy carapace covering the front part of the body. They also reassemble tarantula. The family Theraphosidae is divided up into 12 sub-families, as follows.
    The genus Spelopelma was merged into the genus Hemirrhagus in 2003, thus merging the subfamily Spelopelminae into the Theraphosinae.
     
  17. surprised_by_witches

    surprised_by_witches Sleep deprived

    OK, then I REALLY don't want those spiders touching me. Minnesota has many advantages, one of which is, no venomous creatures. At least not instantly fatal ones. Maybe the odd black widow spider, that's about it.

    It's too cold here, you see. Venomous creatures tend to like the warmth. Wonder why that is. Plus, our bugs stay small, unlike those in the southern United States.

    I'm a real nature lover, actually. I love every creature, except the mice living in my baseboards, and cockroaches. Also wouldn't be too pleased to have a wild rat in my house. But that's just common sense. Mice and cockroaches are filthy, and rats are just plain dangerous.

    Oh, and as mentioned, I don't care for sheep. I like lambs and the kind of sheep that's left to wander, like the ones in Scotland, because they're smart. But penned adult sheep are just stupid smelly bags of wool.

    Still, I'd never harm one and I'd help it if it needed it. Softie, that's me.

    I do kill the ants that have invaded my kitchen, though. I'm not completely soft. :D
     
  18. Helén

    Helén Posting Queen

    Pet rats are actually very, very nice. And clean as long as one keeps their cages clean of course. And they are incredible intelligent.

    If you have mice around - you don't have rats, and vice versa. :) Wild rats normally live in sewer systems and around garbage bins where there's human food. Mice prefer grains and fields. So around here - no rats, but some mice. Our cat comes dragging a mouse now and then she's catched and presents to us. Her way to contribute I think. :D She's a very caring cat, but when she notice we don't want her mouse - she takes it by herself.
    :grin:

    Our cold weather keeps our insects small as well. Small spiders we have... I think Minnesota has a similar climate to us. .)

    I don't care one bit for cockroaches though. They're really filthy in my book. And I'm no friend of wasps, ut I appreciate bees and bumble bees. :)
     
  19. muffin-tacos

    muffin-tacos Queen of Xeex

    Cockroaches are just plain gross. (Why do I think of Fear Factor when I say that? :yuck:) They're just really hard to get rid of. I've heard that if you kill a cockroach more will just come. Talk about a nightmare.

    As for wasps, bees and bumblebees. They're all the same to me. Personally I think that bumblebees are the scariest out of them because they are bigger versions of bees. Sure, they're friendly when they don't sting you, but so are wasps. They are just so huge and they're scary. They're about as scary as charging *cough* sneezing *cough* sheep to me. :p
     
  20. Helén

    Helén Posting Queen

    Lol Muffin. :D Well. Wasps have this lil nasty habit to haunt me and try to sting me. Don't know why. :confused: Same with Hamsters. I love them - they're So cute, but. They just plain hate me and every time I try to hold one - they :biting: me... :depressed:
     

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