Since Monday it has been really warm (25 degrees in Eastern Ontario). We noticed that our insect count has lower dramatically since we put our trap near our pond. The insects are different such as mosquitoes, spiders, and smaller. We had lots of flies on the edge of the woods and now in the forest in the pond, only two. Hope to catch a few more before Friday!
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Last day of extended week 1! Interesting find
Well we had such an exciting week. We must have close to 100 insects in our bottle. But the highlight was today when our teacher came to school, she brought this giant insect. it was in the back pick up of her truck. She lives 5 minutes away from school. The kids wanted to send it to BIO for identification. What a creepy insect. We have never seen this before!
This is an interesting find!! We will try to research its name this week.
Biodiversity around the trap
Today in Eastern Ontario, Iona Academy students participated in the Virtual Bio bus tour! We are pretty pump up about finding all the cool bugs that were described in the webinar.
Here is a view from our pond behind the school yard. Can you see our trap?
Today, as we were approaching the trap, we saw a little bird (chickadee) inside the trap. We we approached, it took off to fly, but kept hitting the net trying to escape! How cute that was:-) Too bad we never had our photographer near by!
On the other hand, we saw we caught more diversed bugs such as a bumble bee, spiders, lady bugs and others we did not know the name. Again more flies ( I guess it is because we are close by a dairy farm).
Weather was 15 degrees and partially cloudy. Very little wind!
Can you find a lady bug?
Why not take a selfie The Malaise way??
Iona Aca
demy grade 7 biologists are in for the challenge. “Selfie Time” Our boys and girls are so excited to take a selfie with the Malaise Trap today. 
It is such a beautiful warm day for it (16 degrees and sunny day). We were all excited to see the trap! Stay tuned for insect catching report tomorrow 🙂
Iona’s insect competition with a woodpecker!
Iona Academy, Eastern Ontario: Today we had to return our bottle of ethanol to our trap from week one because of the extended week. We did not move our trap’s location as we wanted to keep the same data as the previous week. The temperature today was a high of 12 degrees Celcius with a 10 percent chance of rain.
We also noticed that near our trap we got a visit from a large woodpecker! Look at his work. He is also trying to catch some insects! lol This week it has finally begun to warm up! So we hope to have more success in capturing the insects!!
Iona Academy Finally some sun Week one count
Iona Academy of Eastern Ontario:
Once again we set out to check how many insects we caught. Today we are up to 30 insects, mostly flies and a few moths!! The weather has only been a high of 4 Degrees Celcius with a 40 percent chance of a mix of snow and rain. We are hoping to get better weather next week to continue to catch more insects with success!
April 24th,2015 Day 5: Checking The Trap
Iona Academy of Eastern Ontario: Once again we set out to check how many insects we caught. Today we got up to 30 insects!! The weather has only been a high of 4 Degrees Celcius with a 40 percent chance of a mix of snow and rain. We are hoping to get better weather next week to continue to catch more insects with success!
April 23rd,2015 Day 4: Checking The Trap
Iona Academy of Eastern Ontario: Today was a high of 8 degrees Celcius with a 30 percent chance of rain.
Despite the cold, we were actually surprised to have caught about 25 insects in our Malaise Trap. Many of our insects were flies although, there were several other types of insects caught. We were also surprised to find some twigs and pieces of grass at the bottom of our bottle of ethanol and were wondering why? From the Grade 7 Bloggers.
Monday, April 20th,2015 Day 1: Set up The Trap
We are Iona Academy situated in the st. Raphael’s area of Eastern Ontario. Today we set up our Malaise Trap! We had a few minor setbacks because it was raining while we were setting up. The location we chose to set up was in an open field along the forest edge. It was also near a pond, so we could attract insects from the water, field and forest. It was a very chilly day as it was only 12 degrees Celsius, so not many insects were caught. We hope the weather clears up because we are very excited to be part of this project and hope to catch more insects!–grade 7 students
Iona Academy is Ready! We received our trap!
This is one of the location where we will post our trap. Iona Academy has a beautiful pond in our backyard. This is where we studied our ecosystems this fall. We cannot wait to start and set up our Trap! We are so happy it is here!!! The snow is almost gone here in Eastern Ontario. Our forest only has a few patches of snow!!! lol