Nature Study: Birds

This was my son's and my first week participating in the Nature Study activities on the Handbook of Nature Study Blog. This week's focus was on birds.

We began on Monday by covering a couple of pinecones with peanut butter and sunflower seeds, and then hanging them outside for the birds. We also added more sunflower seeds to our feeders.

On Monday afternoon, we went outside to watch the birds some. Content to just sit and watch for a while, my son carried a chair out into the yard, not far from the feeder, and sat patiently waiting. I decided to follow suit, and we sat there together, watching and enjoying being out in nature. Before long, the birds began to ignore us and came to the feeder. My son took several photographs that day, and then took more on Tuesday and Wednesday.

On Wednesday, we selected one photo - a male cardinal sitting on our fence - to draw in our nature journals. I found that I noticed so much more about the cardinal while drawing him (from his photograph) than I ever would have by just studying the photograph alone! In order to draw a bird, you have to look very closely at all the little details...and it was this close observation that helped me to really see, and remember, him!


This was the first bird we captured on film on Monday. It appears to me to be a sparrow. Notice the signs of spring in this photo! We're having warm weather here!


This one is a Chickadee. The Chickadees would fly to the feeder, grab a seed, and then fly away to a nearby tree to eat! It was hard to catch a photo of them! In this photo, it appears that he's holding the seed with his feet, while eating it.


I think this one's a dove.


A Female Cardinal.....


And her mate.


A Robin.

My son also caught several photographs of flying birds, but we weren't able to see the birds well enough, even on the photographs, to identify them.

We really had a lot of fun observing the birds this week! Tomorrow my son has an art class to attend, and he's already asked if we can leave home a little early so that we can stop off at the park to observe some birds there!

The whole experience was so much fun!! Barb, if you're reading this, thanks so much for getting us started on this with your Squidoo page!