Simple definition: A survival mechanism employed by some mammals and birds where there is a temporary reduction of body temperature on cold days. Torpor is triggered by ambient temperature and food availability. Note: Hibernation is an extended form of torpor.
We came across this term for the first time when we were learning about the life cycle of the pygmy nuthatch. Reading in our field guide, we came across the term “torpor” and didn’t know what it meant. This led to some research online and it amazed us how this little bird is able to survive the below freezing temperatures we have here in Central Oregon by going into torpor and huddling together with other nuthatches in tree cavities.
These things all work together to conserve energy and keep the tiny little birds alive through the long winter nights.
Please note that I am just skimming the surface of this topic here in this post and I intend on continuing to learn about this topic as time goes by. It fascinates me to see how there are such amazing mechanisms for survival in the seemingly ordinary animals right in my own backyard.
What is torpor? -includes a short list of mammals that go into torpor
You may wish to check out the Learning About Birds ebook here on the Handbook of Nature Study. It is found in the Ultimate and Journey level memberships for you to download and use with your family. If you would like to gain access to this ebook, you can purchase a membership now and have instant access.
Use the discount code BIRDLOVER5 for $5 off an Ultimate Naturalist Membership.
You can use the link above to look at the winter bird study activity in my archives. Your family may be interested in learning more about feeding your own backyard birds in the winter. To help you do this, I put together a page that explains how to keep Birdfeeders in Winter.
In winter, birds still need the basics: food, water and shelter.
Plus you may be interested in taking a look at my Learning About Birds With the Outdoor Hour Challenge ebook for a more in-depth study of backyard birds. For the month of February, I’m offering a $5 off coupon for every level of membership here on the Handbook of Nature Study. This ebook is in both the Ultimate and Journey levels of membership. Take a look at all of the benefits of having a membership!
Discount Code: $5 off any membership on the Handbook of Nature Study by using the code FEB5 during the month of February 2018.
If you have access to the Winter Wednesday ebook in the Ultimate Naturalist Library, there is a custom notebook page available to use as a follow up to your nature study.
Join us for the Winter Wednesday series of challenges here every FRIDAY. You can find them under the winter tab on the blog or if you have an Ultimate Naturalist Library membership, you can find the ebook there for downloading.
You may be interested in following my Bird Nature Study Pinterest board for lots of bird nature study ideas.
This post is the first in a monthly series of posts I will be writing as part of a fantastic group of women who I’m linking up with on the 20th of each month. There is a topic of the month and we will all share a book and activity that goes along with that theme. You can use the links at the bottom of this post to see all of our books/activities. Use the linky tool below to share your own bird related links this month too!
Backyard Birds!
One of my great joys in life has been observing my backyard birds. When we moved from California to Oregon, one of the first things I requested of my husband was to put up all our birdfeeders. I could hardly wait to see who would visit in this new habitat!
We started watching our own backyard birds many years ago when my children were all still homeschooling. The boys created birdfeeders to put up right outside the window so we could look for birds while we were working on our school activities. At first we didn’t know very many of the bird’s names, but using a field guide over several years we were able to correctly identify about a dozen birds. The habit of bird watching has continued even into their adult years and I like to think that starting them young was a motivating factor for their love of birds.
A Valuable Addition to Your Nature Library
(Note there are affiliate links in this post)
One of the books we had on our windowsill was the Peterson Field Guides for Young Naturalists – Backyard Birds (written by Jonathan P. Latimer ISBN 9780395922767). It was simple to page through and use as a way to familiarize ourselves with many of the most frequently seen birds in North America. The book is organized by color of bird and is beautifully illustrated. It’s a wonderful supplement to any bird nature study activity or even as an additional resource for a study of flying creatures. It has always had a special spot in our nature book library.
It’s a valuable first bird guide for your children and it will lead you right into a more thorough field guide as your skills improve and you become more engrossed in identifying every bird that visits your feeder.
Backyard Bird Activity
Black and White Birds Nature Study Using the Backyard Birds Book
Would you like to see an idea for using this book with your own backyard birds?
Use this activity (see step #3 in the challenge for the reference to the Backyard Birds book) to learn more about the chickadee, nuthatch, and woodpecker. I have included lots of links and ideas for you to use with your family.
You can find this book in both the Ultimate and Journey level memberships on the Handbook of Nature Study.
Please note we will be working through all of the Outdoor Hour Challenges in the Learning About Birds ebook starting on March 2, 2018. Make sure to subscribe to my blog to follow along with those bird-related nature study activities.
Link Up Guidelines
Choose an engaging nature book, do a craft or activity, and add your post to our monthly link up.
The link up party goes live at 9:00 a.m. EST on the 20th of each month and stays open until the last day of the month. Hurry to add your links!
You can link up to 3 posts. Please do not link up advertising posts, advertise other link up parties, your store, or non-related blog posts. They will be removed.
By linking up with us, you agree for us to share your images and give you credit of course if we feature posts.
This post is the first in a monthly series of posts I will be writing as part of a fantastic group of women who I’m linking up with on the 20th of each month. There is a topic of the month and we will all share a book and activity that goes along with that theme. You can use the link below to see all of our posts and you’ll be able to add your links as well.
I’ve been eagerly awaiting the start of Feederwatch season here in my new habitat of Central Oregon. Our new yard has been a challenge of sorts for hanging bird feeders because of the other critters that have decided to partake of the seeds and suet. It was a mystery to me how I could fill up my rather large feeder late in the afternoon and then awake in the morning to a completely empty feeder! I didn’t realize how fast the deer could drain the feeder.
Then there are the squirrels that just help themselves.
My husband came to my rescue by fabricating rather tall poles for the feeders to hang on and so far this has solved my problems!
So what is our setup?
I have three different feeding stations, one in the front yard and two in the backyard.
The front yard feeder seems to attract the little birds like chickadees and nuthatches. I read somewhere that when the temperatures drop the birds like a suet feeder, so I added that when I took down our hummingbird feeder. There is still a bird bath but I’m not sure how I’m going to keep it from freezing. I saw at the Wild Bird store you can buy a little heater so if it’s within my budget, I will get one the next time I’m there.
Closer to the house in the backyard, I’ve hung a new suet feeder and a new cylinder seed feeder. I haven’t observed many birds at the new style of feeder so I’m wondering about location. We may move the feeder back to the fence line closer to the trees if we don’t start to see the bird traffic to the feeder increase.
This is where all the action happens! We see lots of birds at this feeding station, both at the feeders and under the feeders. I have mostly black sunflower seeds in the hopper feeder and I rotate the variety of suet I use in the suet feeder.
Here are our Project Feederwatch results from our first count:
Scrub Jay -2
Mourning dove -3
Chickadee -5
Junco -5
Varied thrush -2
Red breasted nuthatch -2
Hairy woodpecker -1
Spotted towhee – 1
House finches – 6
Pine Siskin -1
In addition, we heard and then observed a Red-tail hawk in one of the pines in back of the house and two ravens flying overhead. They don’t officially make the Project Feederwatch list since they were not in the feeder, but I made a note of their appearances in my records.
I will be posting monthly Project Feederwatch data as the season continues.
Here we go with the challenges that encourage you to create a Venn Diagram for comparison. This week’s challenge guides you through a study of the goose using the Handbook of Nature Study and then you will compare it to a duck.
See the entry from earlier this month showing how to use a Venn Diagram. (make this a link later)
If you’re using the ebook, there are notebook pages for a goose study and a more generic autumn bird study just in case you don’t have a goose or duck to observe in real life.
I am fascinated by birds that migrate. It makes me feel an awe for such creatures and the way they travel up to thousands of miles as the seasons change. When I lived in California, I was aware of birds and the way they would come and go at my feeders season by season. I could anticipate their arrival and then have a fairly good idea of who would be leaving at the turn of the weather. Project Feederwatch each year made me keenly aware that the birds at my feeders were not the same year round.
I am getting ready to participate in my first year of Project Feederwatch here in my new home. I have updated my account and created a new description of the feeders and their locations and types. Watching birds is an everyday affair here from my kitchen and family room windows so Project Feederwatchis a perfect match for our lifestyle. I enjoy participating in a citizen science project that helps gather data for those involved in various bird science projects and studies. Plus, it is something that refreshes me and brings a lot of joy to my life. It is something that I can participate in that doesn’t take a huge commitment of time and I can do it right from my own home, even if I am wearing my pajamas.
This is our first autumn and winter here in our new home so we are still experimenting with various feeder types and the placement within the yard. I had an idea to add a brush pile just outside our back fence after we trimmed some tree limbs. So far I have observed birds and squirrels investigating the jumble of limbs with their needles and cones still intact. It isn’t too far from my cluster of feeders so it will provide some shelter for birds once the snow arrives.
I started right after we moved in creating a list of bird visitors to our yard. I will be keeping that habit going right on through the next few seasons. This should give us a pretty good idea of the migrant visitors as they pass through or stay for awhile. This is a simple way to get your family started with a more in-depth bird study and I encourage you to keep track of the birds that come to your feeders.
We recently had the experience of hearing and then seeing a group of sandhill cranes fly over our yard. It was about sunset when my son and I were out doing yardwork. I heard in the distance what at first I thought were geese coming overhead. But, it was a strange and unfamiliar sound and not geese at all. (Click over to AllAboutBirds to hear what it sounded like.) My son spoke up when he realized it was the sound of sandhill cranes. He had heard them before when we lived in California and immediately recognized the rattling loud commotion of a group of cranes flying south over our house. It was exciting to experience this for the first time and I have since done some research into the migration habits of the sandhill crane. Knowing how far they fly has given me such an awe for these large birds. I just created a page in my nature journal with this information and I will share the page next week in an entry.
The opportunity to study birds can present itself when you least expect it…look for those opportunities!
Make sure to learn about the Feederwatch program and decide if it is a good fit for your family!
There is a wealth of birding information on the internet but I have not found a more homeschool-friendly site than the ones sponsored by Cornell University. I would love to encourage you all to subscribe to their homeschool blog (click the logo above to pop over there now).
You can also follow them on Facebook .
You can download homeschooling resources here.
Of course, my favorite resource is their AllAboutBirds website which is a great tool for identifying and learning more about birds in your own neighborhood.
Purchase the Ultimate Naturalist membership this week and receive a $5 discount.
Use the code SUMMERBIRD at checkout.
Code expires on 7/20/17.
I am hoping that many of you already have this new ebook that features 28 different birds from the Handbook of Nature Study. You can read all about this ebook and download a sample here: Learning About Birds.
But if you don’t already have a membership, I hope the $5 discount will help you decide to join and receive not only this ebook but all 20 ebooks available in the Ultimate Naturalist Library!
Our new house backs up to a river and that means we have a lot of birds that live along the river visiting our backyard and feeders. The red-winged blackbird is a daily visitor so we’ve had plenty of time to observe it up close. We hear it in the early mornings as the day is awakening. This challenge is coming at just the right time for us to make a more formal study of this active black bird.
Use the ideas in the Outdoor Hour Challenge in Homeschool Nature Study membership. The suggestions will help you get started using the Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Botsford Comstock to learn more and help your children get to know this fairly common bird.
What should you do if you don’t have any blackbirds to study this week? Pick another bird!
What a month! We’re still getting acquainted with our new habitat and the weather here in Central Oregon. June started out feeling like early spring to me…cold at night, a few gray days, sprinkles, and the beginning of the wildflower season.
As I was looking at our photos from the first week in June, it seems so long ago! The brittlebush was the predominant flower we saw along the roadsides. There were a few other flowers like the pussypaws and a bit of yarrow.
Now the roads are lined with lupine, daisies, yarrow, and penstemon. We found an awesome patch of river lupine on a walk this last week. There were whole fields full of purple spikes so tall they looked artificial. I could’ve taken a hundred photos! (Make sure to look at our Lupine Nature Study Challenge.)
I can’t describe the feeling of waking up every morning now to a new day. I am eager to throw open the blinds to see what is out on the horizon. Is it a misty morning over the river? Are there deer or elk in the yard? Is it a golden sunrise? Each day has its own gift.
We walk every day in our new neighborhood. My favorite is the sunset walks down behind the house at the river. Over the past month, the grasses have grown from ankle high to pretty much waist high! We can barely see our Labrador as she walks through the grass. The sound of birdsong is a constant feature and I’m trying not to tune it out into the background.
We have a weekly routine of going to Sunriver for a walk and a “date”. It could be a cup of coffee or a lunch on the patio of one of the restaurants or a visit to the nature center. It is all such fun. There are so many walking and biking trails throughout the area that we’ll be hard pressed to walk each section before the summer is over but we’re going to cover as much as we can. This coming weekend I am going to Sunriver for the Central Oregon Wildflower Show! I may try to do an Instagram Live session if possible.
We have been hiking up at Newberry Volcanic National Monument. We drove up to Paulina Falls and then hiked up to Paulina Lake. It was a really warm day but the sound of falling water and the shady forest trail made it so enjoyable. We did some investigating while we were up there and now have a short list of places to hike and a kayak trip planned.
We spend a lot of time in our yard as we see it transforming rather quickly from winter to summer. We are nurturing the rock garden and adding a few new things as we discover what will actually grow in our garden zone. I pretty much find plants that say they are hardy to -20 degrees and figure that should be good enough.
Now that July is upon us, I am anticipating a big trip back east. I was just sent some links to hikes we will be doing in the Hudson Valley of New York and we have a trip to Niagara Falls planned too! As much as I want to go, I am sort of feeling like I would like to stay home to experience a complete July summer in Oregon. I guess that shows I’m beginning to feel more at home here. My husband will be in Oregon and I will have him document the weeks that I’m gone so I can at least see what I’m missing.
I hope you’re having a great summer so far and I look forward to hearing how your outdoor activities have enriched your life.
Ultimate and Journey Level members can click this graphic to go directly to the library to download a copy of this new ebook. Make sure you are logged in and if you are having trouble with your password, please leave me a comment or send me a direct email to receive my assistance. Email: harmonyfinearts@yahoo.com
How Do You Join?
Answer all or just one of the prompts in a blog entry on your own blog or right here on my blog in a comment. If you answer on your blog, make sure to leave me a link in a comment so that I can pop over and read your responses.
During our outdoor time this week we went….
The most inspiring thing we experienced was…
Our outdoor time made us ask (or wonder about)…
In the garden, we are planning/planting/harvesting….
Please read the following explanation outlining how to get this month’s newsletter.
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This month’s newsletter link will be available only during the month of July so be sure to download it before 7/31/17.
Contents of this edition of the newsletter include:
My article: Learning Birds by Song- We are going to be learning about birds this month! One of my favorite activities is to listen to birds sing so this month in the newsletter I am encouraging you all to give it a try!
There are several printables in the newsletter this month: planning page with lots of simple nature study suggestions, nature journal toppers, nature study bookmark, and a bird life list.
Resources for your Nature Library: I have started to build a nature library store on Amazon that will feature by category my favorite nature study books and resources. Take a look and see if there is anything you would like to put on your wish list for your family’s nature study library: Handbook of Nature Study Nature Library Suggestions on Amazon.com. Note this is my affiliate store to items I personally recommend and have read or seen in person.
Please note that Ultimate Naturalist and Journey level members have access to members only printables each month in addition to the newsletter printables. You will need to log into your account and then go to the “Other Releases” section.
New printables are now posted in the Member’s library!
1. Bird Tail Comparison: Use this notebook page to learn more about the shape of bird’s tails by making some comparisons.
2. Learning About the Shape of a Bird’s Tail: Do some research on bird’s tails and then do sketches of each kind of tail.
If you are looking for a fantastic set of bird notebooking pages that includes all of the birds in the Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Botsford-Comstock, this is THE product to have on hand. I have used these pages with my children and in my own nature journal over the years. Please note that I am an affiliate for NotebookingPages.com and will receive a small commission if you purchase any of their products. I highly recommend this set for your bird nature study.
