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Nature Observations during nature hike from perspective of Jessica (note-keeper):

Buzzards' circling behavior is a kinesis. It's a random movement, and an innate behavior. If there's carrion bcak there and they're circling, that's an FAP. Sparrow Hawks have been genetically programed to sit on a perch. They sit up there until they see a small animal, and then they dive-bomb the creature. That dive-bombing is a positive taxis. there is a column of buzzards on the horrizon. They will circle in the wind-current. This could also be migratory behavior. Oh, look, a grasshofper just jumped in front of me.

A spider went under the electrical outlet. That's a negative taxis. There's sometimes a herd of axis deer, but they're not here today. The butterflies are resting on a weed. We discovered several pillbugs under twigs and branches. Pillbug rolling up is a reflex.

After pulling away a log, we found lots of fire-ants (the Devil's
messengers) When I poked the grasshopper gently with my cane, it flew away. turned When turning over stones, we noticed that there're some anns that are moving around because Bryan turned over the rock. UNDER another stone is nothing. there's a worm circlcling down into the ground. Huge scopion, which is almost perfectly camouflaged

A lizard defensively detached its tail. T'i a positive taxis.

There's also some worms. There's a black little slender thing with arms and legs. There's more larvae. Then a big red thing that looks like a centipede. There's some more larvae. Under another stone, we found a cluster of rolly-pollies. Fire-annts swarm when exposed. They swarmed all over Coach's shoes. This is very much an FAP. Ants get extremely pissed when certain chemicals are released. Termites look like little white ants.

After collecting outside for a few moments we all waited to see which way to go. Some more guys came out and said that we were to be going to the tennis court out in the back and to basically start walking straight. And so we did. At first we had dried road mixture to walk over, and then another sort of blacker, darker road mixture to walk over, and then this pale-white chalky road to walk over that was heavily travelled and probably was the road back to the band hall that I have been down a few times when my father was dropping off my brother for early morning practice and we were running slightly late in the morning.

And so we continued to walk out there and follow the road and her and I walked on the side of the road over the grass and so on. Ragsdale caught up with the group by the time that we were still moving west (he was left behind grading for a few moments). The sky was clear blue with some clouds. The trees were far off in the distance. It was just this white, chalky road and some fenced in areas of grass and some grass on the side of the road to my left and then the sports courts to my right (though not directly). This was the same area that was used last year for the bug hunt.

Ragsdale stopped the group on this particular part of the road at least twice. The first time he stopped the group he pointed off into the distance to the north where he apparently saw some vulcher on the light pole overlooking the court. He said that this was a certain type of preprogrammed behavior. And he said that the voulcher would swoop down to capture birds, small rodents, dead animals or anything else that it spots with its keen eyes. The second time that he stopped the group he pointed out to the south where there was a swarm of at least five to ten voulchers in the air that were going around in a circle. He said that this meant that they had found food. In one of those stopping moments he talked about kinesis, taxis, reflexes, and FAPs (fixed action patterns or fixed action potentials).

And I did not even get to the description of the wooded land even yet because those are the next couple of steps that I have yet to write about. It makes me wonder how much I really do remember versus how much I think should be there. I most definitely remember quickly tredging you and I over to the other group as they had already swung over the fence and the big giant pipe. Actually, before that we stopped next to them as they were observing something that had ran into the pipe, but then we moved back over to the entrance (so my writeup was faulty at first). Anyway, then we caught up with them first on the other side, Ragsdale moved towards the group of trees in front of him and we stopped to take note of the bugs jumping across in front of your path. And that's when we moved forward in observation of the cacti and Ragsdale said something that sounded slightly intelligent (though I cannot remember what).