I am thoroughly enjoying my Project Feederwatch counting this year…we added a few new feeders that are closer to my viewing window and that makes counting super easy. Even watching our “ordinary” birds gives me such pleasure. Here are some images from my counting days of my fine feathered friends.
Finches!
Loving our mockingbird and watching him visit every morning to a particular tree and then to a blackberry vine in the corner of our yard…always sitting at the top.
I caught this sparrow with his mouth full of seed. Love his feet too!
This is one of the woodpeckers that visit our feeders and trees just about every day now. They aren’t very big but they are beautiful birds.
Here is my list of birds that have come to visit during the months of November and December.
November and December Bird Lists
White-crowned sparrow
Dark-eyed junco
House finch
White-breasted nuthatch
Western scrub jay
Anna’s hummingbird
Spotted towhee
Northern mockingbird
Evening grosbeak
American robin
Mourning dove
Nuttall’s woodpecker
Lesser goldfinch
Titmouse
Northern flicker
European starlings
California towhee
Bewick’s wren
Fox sparrow
What birds did you see this month?
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I have been attempting to take a photo of my front yard from my office window each month for comparing. This was an idea that came from Alex over at Life on a Canadian Island when she shared her photos each month with the Outdoor Hour Challenge Blog Carnival. I looked back through my images and I found that I have been fairly successful in capturing an image each month. I thought today would be a great day to share a few of the pictures with you because they show the autumn colors we have finally experienced.
This is from March 2015 back when everything looked so neat a tidy. You can see the daffodils and the forsythia are the stars of the show.
This one is from August 2015. The butterfly bushes and the sage have taken over and are created shelter for the birds, bees, and butterflies.
This was from the beginning of November 2015. The dogwood tree, the redbud, and the butterfly bushes are all starting to take on their autumn colors.
This is the view out the other window in my office…looking out into the Chinese pistache trees. I love having these trees in our yard because there are many birds that are attracted to them at this time of the year. I get to see flickers, robins, starlings, and bluebirds as they hover and perch around the nutlets that are crimson red on this tree.
Now this week we have had hail twice and it has changed the look of the view out my living room window. I spend lots of time observing the birdfeeders from this particular window and since we trimmed a few of the butterfly bushes and the lavender and the yarrow I have a clearer view of who is visiting.
If you would like to read more about starting a window study or any year long nature study, members can look at the July 2014 edition of the Handbook of Nature Study newsletter. There are quite a few ideas and suggestions in that issue. Or, you can start a year-long tree study by using the ideas in this entry: Four Seasons Tree Study Photo Project.
You might also like these nature color ideas:
Color Cards– These printable cards are perfect for younger students.
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Last month I shared how to plan a nature study course for a year. This time I want to show you how to use the monthly ideas shared in the Handbook of Nature Study newsletter and each Friday here on the blog and make a monthly nature study plan. If you are a member here on the Handbook of Nature Study, there is a set of planning pages available in the printables section of your membership.
Customize Your Monthly Nature Study Plans
Think of all the ideas as ingredients. There are many options for your nature study recipe. Pick the ones that suit your family and your taste. Add them to the planner page and use that as a way to remind you of your options for the month. Don’t feel like you need to complete all the things you list on the planner page….I don’t. But, creating the list will make it more likely I will accomplish something during the month. Celebrate the things you are able to share with your family and look at this as a life long journey, taking one month at a time.
Handbook of Nature Study Newsletter– Download and print the newsletter each month. Read through the ideas presented and pick a few to put on your monthly planning page. Make sure to look on the planning page for nature photo ideas, nature table suggestions, and nature journal topics to jot down on your monthly planning page.
Ebooks- If you are following along with the Friday posts, pick one or two to include on your monthly planning page. (The month’s Friday topics are found on the planning page in the newsletter.)
Archives– You are welcome to pick an ebook from the library and pull challenges from there. Write the ebook title and the challenge title on your planning page.
Seasonal ideas- Use the seasonal ideas from the tab at the top of the website to find one or two seasonal ideas to pick from for your family.
Printables- If you are a member here on the Handbook of Nature Study, check out the printables in your library for additional ideas to include on your monthly planner.
Does that overwhelm you? Here is an alternative that will be simple to try!
As an alternative, download the newsletter planning page and print the planning page out (usually it is the second page of the newsletter). Add ideas to the page that you would like to include for your monthly nature study time. Again, don’t feel like you need to do everything but use the planning page as a way to stimulate some nature study during your month.
Any more questions!
I hope this helps answer the frequently asked question about nature study planning for your family. Let me know if you have any other questions that I can answer in future posts!
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Entries about notebooking for your nature journal you may want to read:
Want to see what they look like from our nature journals? Here are a couple of examples.
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Please read the following explanation outlining how to get this month’s newsletter.
The newsletter link is not in this email but will come separately. There may be a delay in your receiving the email so please don’t email me until the second day of the month if you haven’t received the link on the first. For some reason, some email providers take longer to receive the newsletter email.
If you don’t receive the separate email with the download link, you probably aren’t subscribed to the blog yet. This will take less than a minute to do if you follow the steps below.
If you are a subscriber and you haven’t received your newsletter email yet, check your SPAM inbox. Some subscribers have found the email buried in SPAM inbox.
If you need to subscribe:
You will need to go to the Handbook of Nature Study, look to the top right corner for the box to type in your preferred email address, and then confirm the email that comes to your email inbox.
Once you subscribe, you will receive a thank you email from me with the download link.
This month’s newsletter link will be available only during the month of April so be sure to download it before 4/30/15.
April Nature Journal Toppers, grid, and coloring page
May preschool nature table ideas, printables, and activities (so you can plan ahead of time!) Check out the Amazon Store for this month’s topics: Handbook of Nature Study May Preschool.
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.
Need help getting started with your nature study using the Handbook of Nature Study? Check out the fresh “Getting Started” page here on the website!
I highly recommend these resources to use in your family’s nature study notebooks and will be a valuable tool in your continued nature study adventure.
Every now and then I remember that I have a particular plant or tree to research and the California hoptree is one such subject (Ptelea crenulata). I hike past it with great regularity and note its stages of development through the cycle of the seasons. But, even with its interesting circular fruits, I often fail to take a photo and look up more information on this plant.
In researching the hoptree, I found that it is a member of the citrus family (Rutaceae) which is distinguished by its aromatic gland-dotted leaves. The hoptree that we have alongside our canyon trail is more like a shrub and my field guide says it can be from 6 ft to 16 feet in height. I would estimate that our tree is about 6-8 feet tall and almost completely surrounded by blackberry vines which makes it hard to determine where the hoptree ends and the vines begin.
The California hoptree became the topic of my Once a Month Nature Journal Project for January. I used one current photo and one from my archives showing the features of my winter observations. I pulled out my field guides and looked online for information to include on my page. Creating a simple journal page pulls all the information together both on the page and in my mind. Next time I hike past this tree I will slow down to take note of its identifying features and anticipate its blossoms come springtime.
Have you created your nature journal page yet this month?
There is something about autumn that makes me want to create a nature journal, capturing the last bits of warm weather left, the few colorful weeds still left blooming, the trees, the change of birds.
Using the grid from this month’s newsletter, I did a simple page that will be filled by the end of the month. It is a simple record of some of the changes and interesting events observed this month.
There was also some time during our visit to Yosemite to create a page for the thistles that were growing and blooming right behind our campsite. Nothing fancy but meaningful to me as I enjoyed an autumn afternoon sitting on a log and sketching a few thistles.
Have you created any journals this month yet? There is still time left to do one or two pages!
lesson plans to use to help you with your nature journal
