Backyard Birding

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May 13, 2020 By Jennifer Lambert 13 Comments

We’ve always been homeschoolers and avid birders.

We’ve loved seeing backyard birds in all the places we’ve lived as a military family: Georgia, Texas, Hawaii, Utah, Germany, and now Ohio.

My kids share my contagious excitement when we see favorites or new birds in our backyard or on nature hikes.

I have proactively taught the kids to be patient, still, and quiet. It’s worth the wait to see a special bird!

We have guide books and apps for IDing song and sight.

We keep journals on our nature finds. We practice our drawing and photography skills.

I have several different bird feeders with different kinds of bird food – nyger, sunflower, safflower, suet, peanuts, oranges and grapes.

We await the hummingbirds each spring.

We also feed the squirrels and raccoons, and even deer. We have baffles and bring the feeders in at night so they’re not destroyed.

We like to visit local parks and ponds to see the water fowl. Feeding bread isn’t healthy. They like peas and greens!

I especially love the owls in our natural areas near our home and the blue herons.

We put up a birdhouse and are waiting to see if we will get a nest and babies.

I notice several nests in the woods in our backyard – squirrels, robins, and more. We see many birds acquiring nesting materials. We love to see the fledglings come to the feeders with their parents.

Sometimes, they get blown down in fall storms and we can study or draw the nests.

Birding helps us appreciate and respect nature, extending to ALL Creator’s wonderful creatures.

Resources:

The Boy Who Drew Birds: A Story of John James Audubon by Jacqueline Davies
The Burgess Bird Book for Children by Thornton W. Burgess
The Snow Goose by Paul Gallico
Seabird by Holling C. Holling
Birds, Nests, & Eggs by Mel Boring
Feathers: Not Just for Flying by Melissa Stewart
A Nest Is Noisy by Dianna Hutts Aston
Wesley the Owl: The Remarkable Love Story of an Owl and His Girl by Stacey O’Brien
The Young Birder’s Guide to Birds of North America by Bill Thompson III
Bird Trivia Game “What Bird Am I?” – The Ultimate Educational Trivia Card Game Featuring Over 300 Cards
Fly Away Home
The Big Year
A Birder’s Guide To Everything
Merlin app
Birds of Ohio (or whichever state you live in)
Good Birders Still Don’t Wear White by Lisa A. White and Jeffrey A. Gordon
Sibley’s Birding Basics: How to Identify Birds, Using the Clues in Feathers, Habitats, Behaviors, and Sounds
Of a Feather: A Brief History of American Birding by Scott Weidensaul
Handbook of Bird Biology by Irby J. Lovette and John W. Fitzpatrick
The Genius of Birds AND The Bird Way: A New Look at How Birds Talk, Work, Play, Parent, and Think by Jennifer Ackerman
The Thing with Feathers: The Surprising Lives of Birds and What They Reveal About Being Human AND Birding Without Borders: An Obsession, a Quest, and the Biggest Year in the World by Noah Strycker
Lost Among the Birds: Accidentally Finding Myself in One Very Big Year by Neil Hayward
To See Every Bird on Earth: A Father, a Son, and a Lifelong Obsession by Dan Koeppel
Kingbird Highway: The Biggest Year in the Life of an Extreme Birder by Kenn Kaufman
Gifts of the Crow: How Perception, Emotion, and Thought Allow Smart Birds to Behave Like Humans by John Marzluff and Tony Angell
The Big Year: A Tale of Man, Nature, and Fowl Obsession by Mark Obmascik
Life List: A Woman’s Quest for the World’s Most Amazing Birds by Olivia Gentile
Birding on Borrowed Time by Phoebe Snetsinger
John James Audubon: The Making of an American by Richard Rhodes
All Things Reconsidered: My Birding Adventures by Roger Tory Peterson
Wild America: The Record of a 30,000 Mile Journey Around the Continent by a Distinguished Naturalist and His British Colleague by Roger Tory Peterson
Birdwatcher: The Life of Roger Tory Peterson by Elizabeth Rosenthal

Notebooking:

Bird study notebooking pages for a variety of topics (bird log pages, parts of a bird diagram pages, pages for the study of eyes, ears, beaks, feet, facts, feathers, flight/wings, homes/nests, and songs/calls) plus individual bird notebooking pages for over 170 birds and bird families. Also includes blank templates to add more of your own topics and birds!

Get yours today!

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What’s your favorite bird?

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Birds Nest Chalk Art

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November 26, 2015 By Jennifer Lambert 1 Comment

We found a bird’s nest and a broken egg at the park, on the ground. It’s been windy!

We brought those home and decided to do art!

I love this simple bird’s next chalk tutorial.

We got out our supplies and set to work.

I didn’t think about it when I placed the nest on a placemat.

Kate drew it literally with the placemat as the background:

I struggle with getting Tori to fill her space, but her detail is amazing:

Liz is not confident with art. She wants to be a master without learning technique. And she’s a rebel, refusing to use the chalk pastels. She prefers pencils.

I helped Alex with his blending. He wasn’t happy with the way his egg turned out. Perfectionist!

We love all these chalk pastel tutorials and eBooks. They help us learn and have fun with simple art projects.

We love all the CHALK PASTEL eBOOKS!

These books are great for every family!

for ALL ages
super simple with chalk pastels and paper (no long, expensive supply list!)
great to do over and over again
appeal to a wide range of interests

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Signs of Spring at Last

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March 25, 2014 By Jennifer Lambert 4 Comments

It’s always fun to see new flowers in spring every time we move.

Tori and Alex were thrilled to see this pretty lil guy in the garden!

They giggled at the name “Crocus.”

hyacinths are my favorite!

lamb’s ears

yellowbells, or forsythia for y’all other folks

the hedges all have buds on them

also, the lilacs are budding and I see tulips and daffodils sprouting up all over the yard.

We made pinecone seed gifts for the birds and they’re just now becoming really popular. The birds are all aflutter, and tease my cats who sit on windowsills chattering in anticipation, dreaming of chasing.

We’ve had woodpeckers and finches, sparrows and starlings enjoy our feeders lately.

This must be a juvenile or female Northern Flicker.

This one came and enjoyed some lard and seeds in our feeders on the maple tree.

Peek a Boo!

This bird had stunning red feather under the tail and wings and little red rings around the eyes.

Everyday we get new buds and flowers.

Flowers are poking green leaves and buds through the grass and trees are beginning to flower.

The Lenten rose twists and turns and bursts into mauve blooms, almost disguised as lovely leaves.

The primroses peek through the leafs, and stretch towards the sunrays.

Hyacinths are my ultimate favorite flower. Their scent is intoxicating.

I love forsythia and the birds are all twitterpated, jumping from branch to branch.

The mint returns, creeping, breaking free from its hibernation to be crushed underfoot and scent the cold spring air with its sharpness.

Every day, my girls inspect our buds, excited to report on the progress of each flower and tree in their springing forth.

It’s so exciting to run barefoot in the cool grass and soak up the sunshine after a long winter. They report to me on the clouds. Even little Alex is watching the sky and learning the different cloud shapes and purposes. While many of my friends in other parts of the US are experiencing snow still, we are blessed to have an early springtime. The temps have been in the 50s.

We’ve been reading poetry by Seamus Heaney and Emily Dickinson with our tea, listening to Brinkman Adventures or Vivaldi’s Spring.

We love the pastel art lessons by Hodgepodge and I am so impressed by my talented kids!

They know hyacinths are my favorite. This hyacinth is just barely being kissed by a sunbeam.

The cherry trees are riotously bursting forth, a surprise around a corner, bringing happy smiles to our faces.

We love and recommend Notebooking Pages for nature study (and pretty much everything else!)

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Winter Bird Study

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February 18, 2014 By Jennifer Lambert 10 Comments

Liz has gotten to be a rather good birder and photographer. She took these shots of the woodpecker and finches from indoors.

I just love this one!

We made pinecone birdie Valentines for the birds.

The gloves didn’t fit Alex so he did it bare-handed. You can tell he doesn’t like it.

Kate loved every second!

I love Tori’s reaction to the gooey-ness.

Kate loved her finished pinecone, ready to hang!

She picked a branch in our lone tree in our backyard.

We shook the pinecones in a baggie of birdseed and tied yarn to them.

Tori picked our shepherd’s crook to hang her pinecones.

Rubeus guarded the deck.

Recipe for Bird Pinecone Valentines:

Large open pinecones
Birdseed
Peanut Butter
Lard
optional: dried fruit, berries, dried corn, seeds, nuts

The kids loved it that our Bible reading for the day was from Luke 12:22-34 about the birds and flowers. Serendipitous!

And we also read a lovely poetry book: Birds of a Feather by Jane Yolen.

Bird sightings in our backyard so far this month: chickadees, sparrows, scrub jays, towhees, finches, woodpecker, magpies, crows

Later in the season, Tori and Katie practiced “sewing” popcorn and cranberries onto thread for the birdies. I was impressed they completed the strand without much help.

It was pretty!

They placed their strands on our lilac bushes.

Each girl got a pair of binoculars for Christmas so we can go bird watching more.

We haven’t noticed too many birdies.

So, for our December nature study…

We read about pine trees in the HNS. Tori is 5 and Katie is 4 so they’re not much interested in listening to that yet.

The girls have observed lots of winter weather. The temps have been in the teens so we haven’t been outside as much as we’d like! We can sure see our breath outside! We haven’t gotten much snow, but there were some amazing icicles a couple weeks ago. We got to go sledding once (Alex did not like it). The girls love the pattern of snowflakes. They’re a little obsessed with Snowflake Bentley right now.

And then there was the wind. It blew and blew! It was scary for them to realize how dangerous wind can be. We had a shingle wedge itself in our stucco! Fences and trees fell down. The girls helped with cleaning up after the wind stopped. They respect the power of wind now!

We have observed some interesting tree situations, especially after all those winds. Several were uprooted and we got to see the whole tree and study the roots that didn’t hold it in the ground.

Katie drew the HUGE pine tree that uprooted across the street, in the neighbor’s backyard. She impresses me with what she sees and how she can transfer that to paper. She’s only 4! I hope to develop this talent!

And it’s not often you can climb a tree that big, but the kids got all in it since it was laying on its side. We studied the pinecones at different levels of development. The bark was really papery in some places and hard in others. Of course, it smelled good: really piney, ha! We got to discuss roots and leaves and the differences in coniferous and deciduous trees.

We look forward to January and hope to have some snow!

Awesome woodpecker page and article here.

Check out the Great Backyard Bird Count info.

We love the notebooking pages at Productive Homeschooling.

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Quail Nature Study

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August 1, 2012 By Jennifer Lambert 1 Comment

Liz found this little guy in our yard waste can. Someone left the lid open.

She rescued him.

So, we called all the kids to come and see!

Katie was so excited and gentle.

Isn’t he cute?

We sure hope he found his family and is safe and sound.

Learn about quails:

ProSchool Membership - Productive Homeschooling

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Hummingbird Nature Study

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July 29, 2012 By Jennifer Lambert 1 Comment

Hummingbirds are probably one of my favorite animals. I feel so delighted watching them. They have such personality!

So, we have Mr. King Hummer who sits in our maple tree and guards the feeder. He chases away all other hummers and twitters at them. Sometimes, he’s so feisty he sounds like a hissing cat when he chases those others away!

I like to sit on the deck with my morning coffee and watch him chase the lesser hummers. He often comes to eat and I was so pleased to get a few good shots of him at the feeder!

And we have this lovely trumpet vine that attracts hummers and bees. Do you see her? I think she’s a broad tailed or black chinned.

The girls are more difficult to identify. The rufous chases her and all others away from the feeder, but he leaves them alone at the vine.

I like to sit on the deck most mornings, drinking my coffee and watch the hummingbirds. They come to my feeder that is no more than a couple feet away from me.

They twitter at me and frolic and chase each other. I love it.

My husband captured these shots. They sure are fast!

I got these with my iPhone.

I’m pretty sure these are black chinned hummingbirds.

Check out this Outdoor Hour Challenge at Handbook of Nature Study blog

I only had ruby throated hummers in Georgia and Texas. I missed hummers in Hawaii (they’re not allowed there due to ruining the pineapple crops) and we have thoroughly enjoyed all the varieties the last couple summers here in Utah.

The kids are as excited as I am about hummers.

We completed hummingbird notebooking pages.