I am excited to share my latest nature study ebook with all of my readers and special visitors as part of the Back to School Gift Basket event! Make sure to enter the giveaway, look for the discount code, and subscribe to my free newsletter while you are here!
Along with the ebook, I am going to be including three bird resources that we have used and loved in our family!
Details of this Giveaway
- Use the Rafflecopter gadget below to enter to win one gift basket that contains the following items. Please note that the ebook is a digital prize that will be emailed directly to you and the other three resources will ship from Amazon.com.
- Outdoor Hour Challenge – Learning About Birds ebook: This brand new ebook features all of your favorite North American birds along with specific nature study ideas for each one.
- Peterson Field Guides for Young Naturalists – Backyard Birds: This book is featured in every nature study challenge in the Learning About Birds ebook.
- Peterson Field Guide – Your choice of either the Western Edition or the Eastern Edition of this amazing field guide.
- Bird Log for Kids – This book is a perfect fit for young nature lovers to record their bird observations and it even includes a child’s first life list of birds observed.
- Receive multiple entries by following the options in the Rafflecopter gadget below.
- One Winner will be picked at random on 8/22/16. Please note winners must live in the United States and respond within 48 hours to claim their prize.
Special Discount for Everyone for the Ultimate Naturalist Library!
Use the discount code FORTHEBIRDS at check out to receive $10 off the Ultimate Naturalist Library – this includes every single ebook that has been published for the Outdoor Hour Challenge…18 in all! Discount code is good through 8/22/16.
Monthly Nature Study Newsletter
Subscribe to the Handbook of Nature Study blog and you will receive my free monthly newsletter on the first of every month: Subscription Entry!
Download your free sample newsletter here:
Handbook of Nature Study Newsletter October 2013 Nature Walk Ideas
It’s a tie between bluejays and cardinals.
Wish we had cardinals here…we do have grosbeaks. Thanks for entering the giveaway!
Difficult question to answer – currently its cardinals.
No cardinals here…I love their song! Thanks for entering the giveaway.
Definitely Cardinals
So far cardinals are ‘winning”. 🙂 Thanks for entering the giveaway.
Eagles!
Amazing birds! Thanks for entering the giveaway.
There are so many birds to choose from, but our favorite is watching the osprey catch fish in the rivers near our home. Once one dove underwater 20 feet from us! It was amazing, something we will never forget! And yes, he flew off with a fish. 🙂
We have seen osprey hunting and they are amazing flyers. Thanks for entering the giveaway.
The Cedar Waxwing! 🙂
We get big flocks of those at some times of the years. Thanks for entering the giveaway.
I love to watch hummingbirds!
We do this daily. Thanks for entering the giveaway.
Peregrine falcon!
This is on my wish list! Thanks for entering the giveaway.
Hummingbirds and Robins
Love hummingbirds! Thanks for entering the giveaway.
Eagles
It is a rare sighting in our area…love them. Thanks for entering the giveaway.
We live in the city, but still have lots of birds to watch. We have a pair of doves in our backyard, and every year a flock of parrots comes through. They are so noisy!
I’m so glad you realize there are birds in the city to watch. Doves are a favorite around here. Thanks for entering the giveaway.
That’s tough. We have had a rose-breasted gross beak and a barred owl that were both fun to watch.
We have black-headed grosbeaks here and they chatter up a storm. Thanks for entering the giveaway.
Hummingbirds or large predatory birds are our favorite to watch.
I love watching woodpeckers.
We enjoy hummingbirds!
Painted Buntings. Yes, we’re lucky!
Wow…those are on my wish list. Thanks for entering the giveaway.
We observe robins and finches in our backyard. I would love to see a hummingbird one day!!!
I have always enjoyed watching the hummingbirds and robins!
I love watching ducks! We have a bunch of them in the “lake” out front.
I love to watch hawks.
Here in Maine I love watching our local Phoebes. From the tell tale flick of their tale to their awe inspiring swoops of flight to catch a meal, they amaze me. They have made a nest in our shed each year for 3 years except this one when they decided our neighbor’s dangerously falling apart deck was more safe(Oh well.) Since May I have watched as Mrs. Phoebe religiously returns to our garden fence posts and burning bush to perch and swoop to feast on our insect menu. I am very humbled by her very kind assistance each year. Her 3 young ones escaped the nest a few weeks ago and are doing very well on their own. One is a bit reluctant to give into such hard labor. His or her Mama is true to her Phoebe heritage though and pushes him/her to try again and again. Soon enough, they will leave near the time of our Canadian geese. I miss their call all winter and yearn for it as a sign of Spring. The Eastern Phoebe is definitely my favorite.
We have a phoebe here in our neighborhood too! Once you hear their song…you can’t miss them. Thanks for entering the giveaway.
Cardinals
Cardinals. Simple maybe, but we have many around here and they are beautiful.
Catching sight of a goldfinch always makes me smile.
I’ve got two favorite birds to observe. Northern cardinals keep me company all through winter, and I know I can always catch sight of one even on the most dismal of days. Blue jays are just a hoot to watch – I’ve never seen such a daring bird. I watched in awe as one kept swooping ever closer to my poor dog, who had no idea that she was apparently too close to his nest. She didn’t get the message until finally the blue jay swooped in one final time and actually tapped her back and started her into moving away.
Your eastern blue jays are so beautiful! We had a vacation last fall in CT and we hung a feeder just so we could watch them up close! Thanks for entering the giveaway.
We were fortunate to have red Robbins build a neat in our yard and have been watching them the whole summer!
Barn Swallows. So much fun to watch them make their nests.
Amazing flyers! Thanks for entering the giveaway.
Hummingbirds
I love to watch the Sandhill Cranes and listen to their beautiful rolling call.
Cardinal
Hummingbirds!
We love observing the cardinals that visit our yard!
In late spring/early summer the Brown Thrasher’s were very busy throughout our yard. We had 2 pairs nest this year! Very exciting! At this point the hummingbirds are stealing the show. It is hilarious to watch how territorial those little birds can be!
Hummingbirds and cardinals.
I love to watch hummingbirds. They are my favorite
We watch our chickens a lot – does that count? Haha.
Seriously, though, there is a red tailed hawk who frequents our pasture, and we love seeing him out hunting.
My neighbor has chickens and they are fun to watch. Red-tails are on my favorites list. Thanks for entering the giveaway.
I love to see Hummingbirds, but they are rare. Cardinals are pretty, but they knock the little birds away from the feeder.
Currently, the finch eating our sunflowers. Usually, cardinals or the owl that occasionally cruises through.
Finches crack me up the way they can land on a leaf of a sunflower and not even bend it down. So beautiful. Thanks for entering the giveaway.
I love watching the Cardinals in Texas!! The males are so beautiful, but I love watching the females chase the males around. We have them everywhere on our property. They can really be funny creatures to watch
I like to watch – and hear – woodpeckers.
We get so excited to see a hawk in our backyard or our neighbor’s!
I love to watch goldfinches…
My oldest is starting first grade and we are studying birds this semester!
Hooray for bird study! Thanks for entering the giveaway.
We find the black-capped chickadees amusing. They are so active and pert and we love how they hang every which way to gather their meal.
Eastern bluebirds! We had a pair nesting in our birdhouse. 🙂
Woodpeckers!
My 6-year-old son absolutely loves bird watching. I think his favorite my be the brown thrasher, but I love hummingbirds!
Thanks for entering the giveaway.
We love watching all birds but it’s really fun to watch the osprey who nest along the St. Lawrence River.
I love to watch the way cardinals come back to the same spot around the same time. But….I also like watching our pet chickens. 🙂
Right now we are enjoying watching the pair of Sand Hill Cranes we have in the field next to our house.
It’s a tie: cardinals and hummingbirds.
ONE? We really enjoy listening to the pair of doves that live in the woods here, I love to watch hummingbirds, the 2 families of Robins that nest here each year and the red-tailed hawks and bald eagles we have in our neck of the woods. 🙂
This is our first year completing a dedicated nature study, so we don’t have a favorite yet, but my children do like to watch the ducks at a pond near our home :o)
According to my 4 children: woodstorks in our yard, ibis in the rookery around the corner, Great Horned owls in our pine trees, and Bald eagles on the power lines driving to Jekyll Island.
The occasional sighting of a Cooper’s hawk in our backyard is very exciting!
We love to watch and listen to the sparrows 🙂
We recently put up a hummingbird feeder right outside of our homeschool room window. We get visits EVERY SINGLE DAY from a few different hummingbirds!!! We are just loving it!!!!!!
My daughter’s love of bird watching began when a flock of robins invaded our yard one winter day while we lived in the desert. While she’s moved on to bigger birds as her favorite – bald eagle – she still calls out every robin she sees.
We enjoy watching the barn swallows that nest under our front porch.
I love watching nuthatches walking up, down, and sideways!
Robins and Red-tailed Hawks! (The one are a lot easier to spot than the other…)
Thank you for the awesome giveaway!
We just moved into a new house, and there are so many birds here. I live watching the tiny hummingbirds.
Bluebirds!
We love to watch the pair of Oak Titmouses (titmice?) that visit the feeder by our kitchen window.
Love to watch the flickers as they peck at the ants on the ground and then to see that yellow patch when they fly.
We love watching the Ospreys hunting! They dive into the pond behind our house, feet first, and we watch in amazement to see if he catches a fish or not! Of course we love all of our little feathered friends as well and have set up a viewing area with a feeder on the window, and a entire nature shelf dedicated to our bird-of-the-month club!! This is a great giveaway! Thank you for the opportunity!
I love the majesty of eagles!
Ducks and geese are favorites at our house!
Woodpeckers are always my favorite!
My little bird lovers would love this!
We love watching Hummingbirds!
I love all the backyard birds, but the one that I could literally watch for hours is the hummingbird.
My kids: peregrine falcon. Me: Great horned owl and Cardinal
I read The Wheel on the School to my children last year, and my daughter decided that she wanted to try to attract hummingbirds to our yard. We set up a hummingbird feeder and researched and planted plants to attract hummingbirds. It took about 4 months, but we finally saw our first hummingbird a few weeks ago!
We have also enjoyed seeing a rare Eastern Bluebird here and there. We would love to see more and plan to mount a bluebird box house in our yard this year.
We love watching the red birds.
Hummingbirds!
We don’t have a favorite kind of bird to observe, but what we most enjoy observing is the hatching, feeding, and growing of the baby birds that we have seen in the nests near and even on our house.
Probably hummingbirds. I love a rare owl sighting too!
We love sitting to watch the quail.
I love watching all of them. Our bird feeder boasts more than 25 species each year. It’s especially fun to watch them in the spring darting back and forth.
We always love watching the first robins of spring, but lately I’m obsessed with bluejays! This year there is a cardinal family making a nest across from my kitchen window that I’ve enjoyed watching, too.
We get a better lot of chickadees and cardinals that are fun to watch.
I like watching the chickadees at our bird feeder. My little guy’s favorite bird to watch is the cardinal.
In the spring we have tons of Blue Jays…they are fun to watch. In the summer we have hummingbirds that I love watching…and a lot of other annoying birds that I don’t enjoy so much! 🙂
I like goldfinches and sometimes a painted hunting comes to the feeder.
We recently moved where there are a lot of oaks and we’ve been seeing woodpeckers. They have been fun to watch.
Cardinals and house finches! We moved a year ago and have a large window now and many feeders. I didn’t even know what a house finch was before! They love the sunflower seed feeder and totally ignore the recommended thistle seed!
I love to watch the Blue Jays ever since I saw one catch a mouse. My hero!
My daughter just recently has become excited about the birds we see around our home. She would LOVE this basket, and we would have so much fun with it.
The bird we see that gets us the most excited is the roadrunner. They are bold, fun birds to watch.
I enjoy watching barn swallows.
Bluebirds are our favorite. We have several bluebird houses in the front and back yards. Every year (sometimes twice in one season) the bluebirds raise babies. The male is so beautiful. The Lord sure blessed us with all the birds we have to enjoy.
It use to be the robins.. we have TONS of them in our yard but my son really wanted to have cardinals visiting us. It is our state bird but we didn’t have any. We researched what they liked and now we got them to come to our feeder! So that has been very fun!
Tie between Downy Woodpecker and Blue Jays!
Bright cardinals are always so eye-catching, but my favorite is the tufted titmouse.
My son would adore those books. He loves science and I use things concerning science to teach him the things he really does not care for
We have some beautiful birds around here, but I really love watching the Owls at night! They are amazing and so beautiful. During the day, I love watching the Hawks!
We have lots of cardinals and blue jays here that visit us. The girls will put out bird seed and peanuts all the time to watch them come into the yard and eat. When other birds show up, they try to identify each one. They love observing the birds. Thanks for the opportunity.
We have a mated pair of cardinals in our backyard. It is a joy to watch the male teaching the baby birds how to “hunt” in our vegetable garden for insects. It is a joy.
The swallows by our house have been our favorite recently! They dodge so close to us it keeps my kids fascinated!
I think my favorite birds to watch are the hummingbirds, especially the ruby-throats.
We love woodpeckers and hummingbirds!
The brown thrasher; he’s rarely seen in our yard. We did spy a peregrine falcon doing errands last week hovering in an unreal way; it was awesome!
We enjoy watching the hummingbirds. We recently just put up a feeder for the first time by our patio door and it is so neat to see them hoovering in the air feeding.
Hummingbirds. Any variety.
We love cardinals and Goldfinches!
I love watching woodpeckers!
Odd as it may sound, crows. They actually help to protect our free range chicken flock!
hummingbirds
I love to watch the cardinal pair that visits us and the red tailed hawks that like to sit on our fence!
My favorite birds to observe are hummingbirds and cardinals.
Black phoebes, fun to watch in our backyard.
Cardinals! They were my father’s favorite bird.
I love to observe humming birds and cardinals
Both the male and the female Cardinal! Their beautiful coloring amazes us every time they visit. 🙂
We have bluebirds and swallows that nest in our yard and we enjoy watching the little birds grow up and leave the nests.
We have plenty of robins, cardinals, house sparrows, starlings, grackles, etc., but I really enjoy watching the very occasional northern flicker.
We like watching for woodpeckers in our yard. We have either a downy or a hairy woodpecker that keeps returning and is so much fun to watch. Thanks for a chance to win!
We love birds!!! We have been having a fantastic time watching little humming birds drink from the flowers the children planted. The house wrens have also given us much amusement this year. We got to se them build a nest and raise some little ones.
mockingbirds!
I love the rose-breasted grosbeak! It was the bird that got me interested in identifying birds because I didn’t know what it was, and I had to go buy a bird-identifying book!
We are currently studying flying creatures in science, and my son loves birds. We took video of a large falcon in our neighbor’s driveway, which was fun but we also usually enjoy watching woodpeckers.
Lately we’ve had lots of pigeons in our yard. But my favorite to see is hummingbirds.
I am a new 4H project leader and I am starting a Natural History and Environmental Science group for our club this year. Hoping to raise funds to subscribe to the “Members Only” portion of this site for our club. This giveaway would be a welcome addition to my program.
I enjoy watching woodpeckers because they are just so interesting!
We love Carolina wrens and the pair of hawks that live in our neighborhood.
Hummingbirds! My daughter loves birds and would love this!
My kids and I love to watch the hummingbirds off my in-laws deck!
I love hummingbirds, they are so pretty. Plus they are amazing to watch.
I love to watch the hummingbirds.
I like watching bluejays. I like how when the find seed in the feeder they announce to all the birds around that they have found food. It helps that they are beautiful, too. I love listening to the mockingbirds.
We get plenty of birds at our backyard feeders, but the ones I enjoy watching most are the goldfinches. We recently had a catbird at the feeder, and it was fun to watch as it quickly grabbed a seed in its beak and then flew into a nearby tree to eat it in secret!
My favorite are owls!
I love to feed the birds, we have an array of song birds who visit us each morning, love the basket by the way.
We’ve been really enjoying watching house finches lately!
Hummingbirds: I have always loved hummingbirds. But I also love the painted buntings, and since I don’t see them very often, I always get a little thrill when I see one. That said, we have a hawk living on our property (red tailed or broadwing perhaps)– and he’s been stealing the show lately. It’s quite exciting to walk out and see him swoop out of a tree and across the yard. =)
Right now I love watching the flickers try to eat from the bird feeder that is too small for them and the crowd try to drink from the sprinkler.
I love hummingbirds! They are such beautiful little creatures!
I love watching towhees dig around under leaves.
I love watching red cardinals. Especially in the snow. They have always been my mom’s favorite and now they are mine.
I love watching the hawks that fly in our area.
Oh we love them all!!
We love watching the hummingbirds come to our window feeder! Personally I think that chickadees are the cutest, but the very rare treat of spying a bald eagle soaring overhead or an owl perching on a branch in our yard are my favorite bird observing moments.
We’ve got a nest of barn swallows nesting at our community garden. They are so beautiful and such graceful fliers.
Too hard to choose just one; I started my life list in 2nd grade when my great aunt took me birding on her farm =)
We love to sit on the porch and watch Chimney Swifts.
I’m pretty sure we have some nesting blue jays in our favorite tree, so i’d have to say blue jays, though we love when the neighborhood downy woodpeckers come to visit!
I love observing Puffins 🙂
We are not very knowledgeable about birds, but we enjoy seeing the Mountain Blue Bird and the Meadowlark. Just recently, I noticed tiny little yellow birds in our yard. We live in a tight neighborhood, so we enjoy any nature we see in our yard. 🙂
I love cardinals.
I really enjoy the hummingbirds.
Cardinals
Hummingbirds and orioles.
I adore cardinals. Both the males and females are just gorgeous!
Cardinals and woodpeckers. I will be teaching a children’s class this fall about birds – we’ll all be learning together!
Hummingbirds
We enjoy any of the colorful birds that may come around, but we mostly get sparrows.
Owls or Bluejays
Owls or Bluejays may be my favorite (this is mind of a duplicate comment, my first one had the wrong email address).
Hummingbirds facinate my family.
I love Kiskadees and Blue Jays
We enjoy looking at hummingbirds.
We have a woodpecker that has made a home in my daughter’s wooden playset…so we are watching it!! 🙂
Hummingbirds
Cardinal, mockingbird and bluebirds!
I love watching birds of prey. I really want to see an owl.
i love crow watching.
We have cardinals that hop around right outside our front door. The kids love their bright colors.
Some of us say blue jays, some say cardinals, some say mocking birds.
My kids and I like watching blue jays…they are so feisty (for birds)!
I love mockingbirds. We had some in a tree outside who used to imitate the ring of our cell phones!
I love to watch hummingbirds and woodpeckers.
Favorite because of the memory attached, but robins! My dad would watch for robins in the late days of winter in PA & he’d get so excited it meaning spring was coming. I live down south now & I see the robins in the winter 🙂
penguins
We really enjoy watching Robin’s in our backyard, but finches are also really fun!
We’ve had a yard full of Golden Finches this year thanks to a huge sunflower patch so they’re our current favorite. In winter, we get a huge variety of songbirds at our suet blocks and they are so fun to watch as well!
I love watching scissor tail flycatchers. They look like huge beautiful butterflies.
We love watching the bluejays steal the dog’s food.
I love pelicans
We like to watch robins. They are not year round here and we see them only about 2 weeks out of the year. It is a sign of seasons changing to us. Also, they love the berries from some of our trees so we can get quite a show.
Thank you for the basket giveaway.
We’ve heard any indigo bunting, but didn’t spot it. My kids enjoy watching the agressiveness of the hummingbirds over their feeder 🙂
We’ve heard an indigo bunting, but didn’t spot it. My kids enjoy watching the agresiveness of the hummingbirds over their feeder 🙂
We love to watch the bluebirds. They made a nest in our birdhouse this year and have laid 3 sets of eggs this summer! We counted 8 babies and they all come back to eat in our yard! We always enjoy watching them!
I am new to your site and glad to have found it!
Adding to my comment, as I commented before seeing the instructions to comment on birds! We adore Chickadees but don’t often see them in our yard. We see loads of Robins and Jays. The PDF link didn’t work for me. Thank you for the give-away.
Here in Texas, we have mockingbirds aplenty and I just love watching them. They have very interesting personalities.
My favorite bird is the hummingbird.
Osprey, Hawks, Eagles!
I used to love seeing Cardinals when we lived in Ohio. Since moving to Florida, we all like Cormorants, Heron and many other birds we had never seen up north.
Hummingbirds or hawks but the hummingbirds definitely stay around to be watched more than the hawks.
I love the African Hoopoe. And, hummingbirds. 🙂
We got lucky a couple years ago and got to watch a yellow crested night heron family from our backyard. It was pretty neat. We also really enjoy watching the cardinals that nest in our roses.
This would be fun for our sons who love seeing birds now.
We have so many birds around, we love to watch their antics! Our Western Blue Scrub Jays love to steal our cat food. They are very brave 🙂 What a great giveaway! Thanks!
We love to spot cardinals!
We love to watch hummingbirds and finches.
I enjoy watching owls and wish I could spend more time out at dusk but my husband loves watching hummingbirds which are much easier to see during the day and in Arizona. I agree, they are quite beautiful to watch but owls have such a unique appearance and character. We have seen numerous burrowing owls which are so fun to watch.
I like watching hummingbirds!
Here in Florida we have so many options. I love to watch the Egrets… because my children love the Muscovy ducks I like those, too.
A hawk that hunts near our home.