Across the Page

My daughters (8 and 5) have really been enjoying our birdwatching unit in science. Using some materials from Stratton House, along with our own eyes and experiences, our whole family has grown more attentive to the various feathered wonders in our own back yard. The bird module includes several experiments targeting things like bird vision, digestion, and aerodynamics; a number of bird-observation pages for noting down the various features of birds; suggestions about setting up feeders; and other goodies.

In addition, we found some resources at the library. Here are a few books that have supplemented the experience (besides Peterson’s, of course):

This little book is packed with information about hummingbirds, and enhanced with winsome ink and watercolor illustrations. These delicate little creatures are some of the toughest customers out there, and we love watching them at our feeder.

We’ve also enjoyed this one, Cradles in the Trees: The Story of Bird Nests.

I learned all sorts of things I didn’t know, such as that hummingbirds use spiderwebs in their nests, and chimney swifts use their own saliva to cement their nests in place. We also took the book’s suggestion and put red yard here and there throughout our yard. In the fall, when the leaves are down, we’ll be able to investigate whether any of our feathered friends incorporated it into their nests.

This Way Home is a simply-told account of a group of Savannah sparrows’ first migration south, then back north again. The illustrations by Normand Chartier are lovely, and Lisa Westberg Peters’ text describes the reference points the birds use — stars, sun, and the earth’s magnetic field — to find their way. The explanations retain a sense of the limits to what scientists actually know, and consequently they retain an appropriate wonder about the natural world.

Last but not least, Our Yard Is Full of Birds and Birds: Eye-Openers are lists of different varieties of birds. The first is a narrative: a young boy tells the reader about the birds in his yard.  The second is an information book with 2-page spreads about different species of birds. Typical for a DK book, the photography in this one is striking.

We’ve been fortunate to have some good bird-observation opportunities. A pileated woodpecker drops in now and then. Once we pulled into the driveway and saw a huge turkey vulture preening on a branch over our back yard. (He must have finished his dinner nearby, but we found no traces.) A Cooper’s hawk occasionally waits for songbirds in the yard too — usually unsuccessfully, since we try to scare him away in defense of the songbirds. (One day we saw him lunching on a mourning dove, and it’s not something we’d need to see again.)

Perhaps the most magical experience is the occasional bald eagle sighting high above the river near our home, or at my father-in-law’s house about an hour away. He has a telescope set up to observe some nesting eagles in the valley below his home, and one day while fishing, he threw a fish back and one of the eagles swooped down and caught it. The girls and I didn’t get to see that, but my husband did, and it was still an exciting story. It seemed fitting that the bird, who had no idea it was being admired and looked out for attentively by a benefactor several miles away, should grace him with an up-close-and-personal visit that way.

All in all, this has been a great unit for encouraging nature study and making the point that learning can be a delightful process not confined to “school.”

I’ll close with a few introductions. We have a hummingbird feeder, a thistle sack for finches, a suet block and a regular seed feeder just outside our dining room window. Here are just a few of the neighbors — probably the same ones that visit your yard:

Mr. Nibbles, the rose-breasted grosbeak

Pigpen, the nuthatch, who sweeps his long beak back and forth and scatters seeds

Kramer the hairy woodpecker, who bursts on the scene like his namesake on Seinfeld (this is Mrs. Kramer, actually... no red head)

Sammy Jay, looking irritated as always (hat-tip to Thornton Burgess for the name)

One of the precious few goldfinches that visit our thistle sack

Timmy Tiptoes (a favorite Beatrix Potter character)