I know that large parts of the United States are under frozen temps and lots of ice so I almost feel guilty posting my photos from our hike yesterday. It was very sunny but the wind was brisk and we took advantage of the afternoon to look into a wetland that is about an hour from our home. This wildlife area is home to lots of migratory birds and is on the Pacific Flyway.
There were many kinds of ducks and geese but some other more exciting birds as well. We watched a pair of hawks soaring and diving for a long time and then we came across this beauty of a bird….a Great Egret.
We observed many Great Egrets. This particular bird was posing for the longest time for us and we got a very good look at his beautiful fluffy feathers. (Go ahead, click the photo to get a better look.)
I tried to get a photo of one in flight and this was the best I could do, if you click the photo you will see it much better. They dangle their feet out behind them as they fly and their wings have a wingspan of about 50 inches.
We also enjoyed the wildflowers that were in bloom…..mostly mustard and this white flower that I am not sure about.
My son spotted these huge mushrooms along the road.
It was nice to get out into the sunshine and explore a new area. We were on the lookout for signs of mammals but we didn’t see any this time.
We decided to go for a long drive today to enjoy the very warm spring-like day. I was driving and observing as we went along that there were quite a few dead skunks along the road, more than usual. I started counting.
Here is our official count:
7 skunks
3 rabbits
2 squirrels
1 possum
1 raccoon
All dead alongside the road.
Are there usually that many mammals to count? I have never noticed that many before but maybe my mind was just thinking about mammals since it is our focus right now.
We saw lots of cattle and horses on this drive as well….very much alive and enjoying the sunny day. Happy cows come from California…or so they say.
As the afternoon sun was fading, the deer started to be seen alongside the road. I was busy driving but my husband and son counted seven deer….one really big buck. In the past, both my husband and I have hit deer with our cars….actually, he has done it twice.
My husband told me today that his friend’s daughter not so long ago hit a bear on the road that we were driving on. I slowed down after that.
Just as a note to myself about the birds we identified today as we drove along and then hiked a little along the river:
Six red tail hawks and one other hawk that I couldn’t identify.
Two turkey vultures.
Vast amounts of snow geese…too many to number.
Canadian geese as well.
We also saw one gorgeous great blue heron in a dead tree alongside the Feather River.
Lest you think that all I took photos of on my Yosemite trip were wildflowers, here are some bird photos. You will also note that these are not my typical “pretty” photos….birds are hard to photograph and they just don’t come close enough for my little camera.
I love to watch for birds in the early morning. The meadow near our campsite was a perfect birding site and I was up early each morning to see what I could find. The first photo is of a white-headed woodpecker and the second photo is a brown creeper.
These are both new birds to add to my life list of birds seen and identified. That is always exciting.
There is a section in the Handbook of Nature Study on different woodpeckers on pages 70-77. You might enjoy reading about the woodpecker in preparation of your next encounter.
Something else interesting is that I found a feather from a Steller’s jayand when I compared it to my Scrub jay feather that is already in my collection, I found out how different the feathers are colored. Both birds are very similar in color and shape but the patterns of color are very different. Here you can see it clearly. The Scrub Jay is on the left and the Steller’s Jay is on the right. There is a section in the Handbook of Nature Study specifically on bird feathers starting on page 29. We found it very interesting to read about the various purposes of feathers and the various kinds of feathers.
Here is a scan of one of my bird nature journal pages that I made during our trip. Nothing fancy but still a really good reminder in my nature journal of the day we saw this woodpecker. You can find the notebook page on my Freebies page.
Hope you enjoyed a little bird stuff today. I still have insects to share and a really big entry with wildflowers. I am trying to decide whether to make a slideshow of the flowers or just share a few of the over forty flowers I took photos of.
What a treat! This hummingbird was having a meal right next to me when we were at the nursery this afternoon. He didn’t seem to care that I pulled out my camera to capture his pretty green feathers and his long black beak. He came back several times as I was browsing but he always came back to this particular plant, the bleeding heart. (make sure to click the photos to enlarge them)
“The hummingbird’s beak is exactly fitted to probe those flowers where the bird finds its food. The tongue has the outer edges curved over, making a tube on each side.” Handbook of Nature Study, page 115
The Handbook of Nature Study has a whole section on hummingbirds, pages 115-117.
There is also section on the bleeding heart, pages 558-560.
We had a very enjoyable afternoon picking out a few new plants for our garden. I will have to share about those after I get them planted in the ground. 🙂
Red-winged blackbird
You can click the link above and read about this bird and also there is a link to hear his song.
If you click this photo to make it larger, you will notice his little beak is open. He was singing up a storm for us.
Here he is landing in the rushes alongside the pond area at the nursery.
We were out at the nursery on Saturday and the meadow and pond area were full of these beautiful blackbirds. I was able to capture this particular bird by creeping as close as I could and then taking lots of photos. 🙂
The Handbook of Nature Study has a whole section on red-winged blackbirds so I was able to learn a lot about them from Anna Comstock’s easy to read narrative. The section starts on page 117.
“The red-winged blackbird lives in the marshes where it builds its nest. However, it comes over to our plowed lands and pastures and helps the farmer by destroying many insects which injure the meadows, crops, and trees.” Handbook of Nature Study, page 119
“If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he or she needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement, and mystery of the world we live in.” Rachel Carson
One nature activity that our family has worked on together is to start and maintain a personalized field guide to birds that frequent our birdfeeder and backyard. We started a few years ago and have added each new kind of bird as we come across it. The instructions are for bird cards but you could easily adapt the idea for trees, wildflowers, insects, flowerless plants, or garden flowers.
How to Make Field Guide Cards
Materials:
5 x 8 index card
Bird photograph
glue stick
Optional: Blank bird information form,lamination, binder ring
1. We take a photo of the bird we want to add to our field guide or if we can’t take a decent photo, we find one on the internet and print it out on our color printer.
2. Glue the photo on one side of the 5 x 8 card.
3. We fill in the blank bird information form with information from our field guide.
4. Glue the information onto the back of the card.
5. Optional: Laminate the card.
6. Optional: We hole punch the corner of each card and attach it to a binder ring.
Here is a copy of the blank information form we use.
PDF of bird field guide blank
Please note: I want to clarify the idea of picking a focus area. The focus area is a topic in the Handbook of Nature Study that your family is choosing to learn about in more depth. Challenge #5 suggested making a list of things you found within your focus area that you might come into contact with in your local area. I suggested that you work in a specific focus area for six to eight weeks so you could really get to know a certain aspect of nature. Each week I am suggesting that you read about one item from your list in the Handbook of Nature Study. This gives you some ideas for observations when you go outside with your children. If on your nature walk you find something else to be interested in, please feel free to go with that interest. I am not trying to limit you but to have some sort of way to direct your nature study. In my experience, as I change our family’s focus, we are hyper-sensitive to finding things in that focus area to learn about because we are more aware. It narrows down our vision a little so we can really get to know our own backyards. I hope that clears up any misunderstanding.
Outdoor Hour Challenge #7
Your Own Field Guide
1. In your focus area, turn to the table of contents and pick a new subject in your section to read about before your nature walk. Make sure to read the observation suggestions to have them in mind before your time outdoors. Take your 10-15 minute walk, looking for things to add to your list of focus area items in your nature journal. Spend some of your time quietly observing and try to encourage your child to look closely at something they have seen before to recognize any changes or new aspects of the item. For example, if you are focusing on flowerless plants, see if you can find some differences between flowerless plants and garden plants. [lack of leaves, petals, or roots]
“Children should know the correct name for parts of things, such as petals, sepals, etc, to help them describe what they see. They should be encouraged to group things together by leaf shape, or leaf vein pattern, or number of flower petals, or whether they keep their leaves all year, or animals that have a backbone, or animals that eat grass or eat meat, etc. Collecting and sorting plant specimens is fun and good practice.” Charlotte Mason, volume 1, page 63
2. After your outdoor time, take time to discuss the outing with your child, helping them to find words to describe their experience. Add anything new to your list of items observed in your focus area that you are keeping in your nature journal. Make note of any additional research that needs to be done for things your child is interested in.
“The ability to group things together by type and find differences is one of the higher orders of intellect, and every opportunity to use it first-hand should be encouraged.” Charlotte Mason, volume 1, page 64
3. Give an opportunity for a nature journal entry. Remember this can be a simple drawing, a label, and a date. Challenges 2 and 3 have ideas for alternatives to drawing in the nature journal.
4. Add any items to your collection that you discovered during your nature time. If you need more information on making a collection, see Challenge #6. Or if you are choosing to start making a field guide with your children, gather the materials and make your first card.
Last night I was sitting at the table when I heard an unusual bird call just outside my window. It was something so distinct that I was alert right away. I called my husband over and we cracked the window and listened…he heard it too.
This morning I heard it again and was determined to go outside and find the bird to confirm my identification. I quietly stepped out onto the deck. Quiet. Then I decided to head down the stairs to look around the yard. Quiet. Next thing I know, a bird flies right over my head and lands on the deck railing. It was a quail! Big, beautiful, gorgeous California quail. He sat there for maybe 30 seconds and then he flew up into our tree. I decided to go inside and get my video camera to try to capture him on film.
Of course he wouldn’t come out of hiding again for me but he did sing me his song. Here is a very short edited video of his call. Listen for the Chi-ca-go call and that is him among the chorus of other morning birds in my yard. You might need to turn your speakers up.
So that is my very exciting new bird to our yard story. We have lived here for over 21 years and this is the first time I have seen a quail in our yard. Wahoo!
Very little compares to identifying a new bird in your feeder. This one was so unusual that we just couldn’t stop looking at it.
The photo does not do it justice. It is bright yellow, with distinct markings of black and white. It was fairly good size so we got a pretty good look at it.
Although the photo didn’t turn out well, the memory will be forever with us.
Yesterday we saw a bunch of blue birds that we had never seen before. We were out driving in the car when we saw nesting boxes all along a fence. We saw flashes of blue and realized that they were birds fighting, not only in the air but on the ground. The birds were very aggressive. When we got home we pulled out our field guide and identified the birds as Western bluebirds.
I shared the following information with a friend about how I identify a bird by explaining how I identified the Evening grosbeak. I personally like using the Audubon Society’s Field Guide to Birds.
Steps I Use To Identify a Bird
1. When I am trying to identify a bird, I rely heavily on color. The bird we saw in our feeder was a bright yellow so that narrowed it down as far as identifying it. The Audubon guide that I suggested for birds is organized by type of bird (clinging, perching, duck-like, etc) and then by predominant color. This makes it fast to skim through a lot of birds visually.
2. After I look at color and general type, I look at size. (sparrow-size, robin-sized, goose-size, etc) The Aububon guide does group from smallest to largest.
3. After color, type, and size, I look at beaks. This is really easy in the Aububon guide because on the photo pages there are three bird photos on a page so there are less pages to look through.
4. If I hit on the right bird by doing that method, I usually do a Google image search on the internet to confirm my findings. If I missed and didn’t get the right bird but I am in the right ball park, I go to whatbird.com and do a search there.
That pretty much sums it up. I know that others have different methods for identifying birds with a field guide but this works for our family.
We have been counting birds for the Great Backyard Bird Count. It started on Friday and will continue through today. We have had all the usual customers at the feeders and a few surprises too!
The white-crowned sparrow usually feeds in our front yard in the forsythia bush which has a blackberry vine tangled in it with some of last summers berries all dried up and ready for eating.
The dark-eyed juncos are a frequent visitor to our feeders and they enjoy both the platform feeder and eating from the ground beneath it.
The hanging feeders were filled with sparrows, finches, and the occasional nuthatch.
Here is our official bird count for Friday:
5 Western scrub jays
2 titmouses
1 red-breasted nuthatch
1 spotted towhee
2 California towhees
6 white-crowned sparrows
12 dark-eyed juncos
1 house finch….probably more we just didn’t catch them when we were counting
7 house sparrows
Those were in the feeders but we also saw in our yard: 1 American crow 2 American robins
In our travels yesterday, we saw: 3 turkey vultures 40+ Canadian geese 6 wild turkeys
This is a great family project that we have participated in for the past three years. If you miss it this year, mark your calendars for next February so you won’t forget!
Here is the whole nest that we found under a tree in our front yard. It is amazingly made with small little twigs and hair. Here is a close-up.
I have no idea what kind of bird made this nest. We do know we have a scrub jay that nests in this tree but this is so small it can’t possibly be the jay’s.
On page 46 of the Handbook of Nature Study under the sub-heading:The Study of Birds’ Nests in Winter: “But after the birds have gone to sunnier climes and the empty nests are the only mementos we have of them, then we may study these habitations carefully and learn how to appreciate properly the small architects which made them. I think that every one of us who carefully examines the way that a nest is made must have a feeling of respect for its clever little builder.”
