Squirrels crossing roads and seeing dreams with your eyes shut

Today I have two questions.

Would it be possible to teach a squirrel how to cross the road at the lights and only when they go green? 

I thought of this question when I read a letter from my Ma (she's my grandmother). In the letter she told me that from their window in Edinburgh they sometimes see squirrels. She said sometimes they were a bit silly because they want to cross the road when there's a red man. So my question is, would it be possible to teach a squirrel how to cross the road at the lights and only when they go green? How? If you can think of any good ideas, please leave a comment.

I would teach a squirrel to cross the road getting the squirrel very gently until we reach the lights. If there's a button for the road, I or the squirrel can touch it, so that the squirrel doesn't run away and so the green man can come very fast. I would do this lots and lots and lots of times until the squirrel knows that it needs to do what I showed it.

My other question is about dreaming.
How can you see if you are closing your eyes when you are dreaming?

What do you see with? Maybe with a telescope that makes you see with your eyes shut. Maybe someone puts it somewhere for me. Maybe with my memory. Or my imagination. What do you think?

That's all that I want to say. Have a nice day.

What's the name of that bird?

Yesterday on our way back from school, we took a secret path behind the parks and we followed a funny bird almost all the way home. It was very difficult to get near it. We tried creeping quietly but it kept flying off. It flew in a funny way, quite low on the ground and fast, from tree trunk to tree trunk, sometimes nibbling something on the grass. My mother said it was a woodpecker, but she didn't know the type of woodpecker.

This morning I asked my mother if we could look it up and we found out its name: it's a European Green Woodpecker. In Spanish they call it "Pito real". We like the red on its head. Under its green wings, its body is yellow-ish, or that's what it looked like when it was flying.

We watched a few videos too. I think this is my favourite one. Watch out for its very very very very long tongue!

River, rain and brain

My questions today were about rivers, rain and brain. Read about what I discovered!

1. Why is the river on our way to school sometimes full and other times empty? It's not to do with the rain, I know that. So why? What happens when we're not looking?


This morning we went off to find out. And we found a few of these:

These are very very big locks. When they want to clean one part of the river, or just to control the amount of water in each of the parts, they bring these locks down, and the water can't pass to the other side.

So what happens when we are not looking is that someone decides it is time to bring down the locks. I would love to see this one day!

2. Why does it rain? 

When we went out this morning it was raining quite a lot. We walked all the way to Parque de San Isidro in the rain. And we wrote down in my notebook this question: Why is it raining? And then: Why does it rain?

When we got back home, I asked my mother and she explained. She said that water from the sea, lakes and rivers evaporates with the heat of the sun (like what happens when we put on a pot of water to boil to make spaghetti). And this water that turns into vapour goes up up up in the sky. High up in the sky it cools down and turns into liquid droplets again. When these droplets grow, they get too heavy and drop down. And then it falls. And then it rains. Or sometimes it snows.


3. Does our brain drive us?

I was walking along with my mother and we stopped at a zebra crossing. I suddenly said I had another question. Does our brain drive us? My mother asked what I meant exactly and I said I meant like drivers drive cars. Does our brain drive us, so that we know we have to stop at a zebra crossing for example.

My mother said that was a very philosophical question and was quite excited I had asked it.

We had a bit of a chat about it when we got back home. My mother said in a way our brains do tell our bodies to stop when there is danger, for example, and tells other parts of the body what to do. She told me when we lift a finger, our brain tells our finger to lift! I said that I thought sometimes our tummy drives us too. For example, when we are hungry. My mother said what drives our body and our mind is very very interesting and she said she thought some people might have some interesting things to say about this on the blog. So I hope she's right and you make a comment if you have other interesting things to say.

That's it for today. I hope you've liked my questions.

When we were out, I also drew this picture of a three-eyed monster in my notebook:

Cormorants, fluffy trees and pebbles

We have decided to start a list of things I want to know. 

This morning on the way to school my mother and I wrote down three questions about things we saw I wanted to know more about. Later, we looked them up and asked around and found some answers.  

These are my questions and the answers we have found: 

1. Why do cormorants spread their wings so much? Are they calling a friend or just drying their wings? 

My mother and I looked this up on the Internet and found out they spread their wings because they are drying them. Then Pa (he's my grandfather) gave us a bit more information. This is what he said:  "cormorants have a lot of natural oil in their feathers. They have to make sure their feathers are in very good condition because they need to be streamlined when they dive and because they spend so much time in water. So the answer may be both - they're drying their wings and examining their feathers to see that they are watertight." 

So that's what they are doing every morning when we see them on the way to school! They spend a very long time in the position of the photograph and they look quite funny. 

My Pa told us one other thing. He said that in one part of China fishermen don't catch fish. They train cormorants to fish for them! That's a bit cheeky!

2. What is that stuff that looks like cotton coming from that tree? What is the tree and what exactly is the cottony thing? 

We found out that the tree that we see every morning is called a poplar and that the cottony white stuff covers the seeds. It's a clever trick of the tree, so that the wind carries the seeds and the seeds plant all over. The cottony hairs also protect the seeds from being eaten by the birds (this is what I think, because no bird would want to eat a hairy seed, or would they?). Some people call the cotton summer snow!

3. What are pebbles? Are they made or are they found?

About pebbles, we found out that there are natural pebbles and artificial pebbles. Some are made and some are pieces of rock smoothed by the sea. But I was also saying to Mummy that maybe some pebbles are made and then found. My Pa also gave us some information about this. He said: "A pebble started as a bigger stone but the sea rolls them around and makes them small and smooth. And sometimes very pretty." It's true. I have seen some very pretty pebbles. 

If you have any ideas or you just want to say hi, please leave a comment.