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Our June Bird Study: Lesser Goldfinches Eat My Sunflowers

6 27 11 Sunflower Leaves - Eaten by Finches
Sunflowers in our garden (self-seeded). Tasty snack for the goldfinches.

We have a beautiful songbird in our backyard that sings to us as we garden. He often is seen in our finch feeder but he also has another part of his diet that is interesting. The Lesser goldfinch eats our sunflower’s leaves! They must be so very light because they can land on the leaves and they hardly dip under the weight. They nibble the green parts of the leaves and leave holes and skeleton leaves on the plants.

I found this video on YouTube.com that shows what we observed in our garden.

5 11 11 Garden birds Goldfinch in the Birdbath
I caught this Lesser goldfinch in our birdbath….bathing and singing.

There is a lesson in the Handbook of Nature Study (Lesson 10) and a previous Outdoor Hour Challenge (Yellow Birds) for the goldfinch which includes this link: Get Gorgeous Goldfinches! The article gives you tips for attracting and then feeding your own goldfinches. If you would like to hear the goldfinches song, you can listen at AllAboutBirds.com.

Goldfinch Notebook Page
We used a photo and the notebook page from the June Newsletter.

We read on AllAboutBirds.com that the Lesser goldfinch sometimes makes its nest in among grapevines to shade the nest from the sun. We think our finches are nesting in our grapevines that are near our back birdfeeder. I never thought to look there.

We love these little birds and even though they cause a little mischief in the sunflower patch, we hope they stick around for awhile.

This is the last of our June Newsletter Challenges. We were able to complete all four this time.
Here are links to the other three:
Garden Critter: Honeybee
Tree: Sitka Spruce
Crop Plant: Corn

Tweet and See button

Now for our Tweet and See list for June 2011
Backyard and Neighborhood:

  1. Turkey vultures
  2. Steller’s jay
  3. Oak titmouse
  4. Lesser goldfinch
  5. Anna’s hummingbirds
  6. California quail
  7. Western scrub jays
  8. Mourning doves
  9. Acorn woodpecker
  10. Common raven
  11. Wild turkeys
  12. Cooper’s hawk
  13. White-breasted nuthatch
  14. California towhee
  15. Spotted towhee
  16. House finches
  17. American crows

Tidepool morning and Crows
Trip to Oregon-There were more birds that I didn’t know so I can’t list:

  1. Osprey
  2. Brown pelican
  3. Song sparrow
  4. American crows
  5. Turkey vultures
  6. American robins
  7. White-crowned sparrows
  8. Western gull
  9. California quail
  10. Black oysercatcher
  11. Winter wren

Tidepool Morning and the Gulls

Happy Birding!

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Nature Study while Learning to Draw and a Reminder

Nature Journal Tree Observations
Tree Study Sketches

“Correlation of nature-study and drawing should give excellent results to both subjects. The nature-study should afford objects in which the pupil is genuinely interested; the drawing should aid in focusing the observation and making it accurate. Drawing should be encouraged primarily for the purpose of discovering what the child really sees. As the child sees more, and with greater accuracy, the drawings improve. So the drawings become the approximate measure of the progress of the pupil. Do not measure the drawings merely as drawings, or from the artist’s point of view. We are likely to dwell so much on the mere product of the child’s work that we forge the child. Too early in the school life do we begin to make pupils mere artists and literators. First the child should be encouraged to express himself; then he may be taught to draw and to compose.”
Liberty Hyde Bailey The Nature Study Idea pg 225

Don’t forget to send in your Outdoor Hour Challenge blog entries for the Blog Carnival. The deadline is June 29, 2011 and I will post the carnival on 6/30/11. If you have trouble entering, please feel free to email me your link but try to use the form first. Several of you are receiving errors when you submit and I have no idea what the issue or how to fix it.

Here is the link: Outdoor Hour Challenge Blog Carnival
You will need to scroll down to the “submit an article” button.

Added incentive: Every entry submitted will give the writer a chance to win the June Newsletter Challenge Giveaway for the Squirrel-Buster Birdfeeder!

Make sure to download the June Newsletter before 7/1/11.

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Nature Study and Summer Travels – Four Steps to Prepare

Nature Study and Summer Travel Tips @handbookofnaturestudy

The difference between a good outdoor experience and a great outdoor experience with an opportunity for nature study is sometimes just a matter of preparation. Summer nature study is a perfect fit for most families with the weather being more enjoyable and with longer days to enjoy. Whether you are visiting a new city, exploring your own city, or taking a road trip, including nature study in your plans can make your time more fun and interesting. Our family tries to include some element of outdoor time to each traveling experience.

Tiger Lily
California Tiger Lily

 

Four steps to preparing for nature study as you travel this summer.



1. Do a little research ahead of time for the habitat you will be visiting. Determine what you will encounter on your trip that might make for interesting nature study. I linked some ideas below along with some simple nature study books to get you started. Make sure to use your local library to find more books to prepare your family before your trip so you have some things to look forward to seeing in real life. For example, if you are going to be visiting an ocean beach, learn what plants, birds, and animals make their home there. You can also use the Handbook of Nature Study to read about things you think you might encounter during your summer travels.

Boys on the beach with waves CA
Beach play and nature study….a nice balance

Habitats Might Include:
Seashore
Woods
Desert
Pond
Deciduous Forest
Boreal Forest (Northern)

Roosevelt Elk Prairie Creek NP
Roosevelt Elk – Northern California

2. Find resources such as field guides or other nature related books to read or bring along with you. I suggest a good bird field guide, a wildflower field guide, and perhaps a tree field guide as a basic set of resources to have with you. Check your library for books you can borrow and take with you. I have complied two lists of suggested field guides: Field Guides for Beginners and Field Guides for Families To prepare, you should page through the field guides before you leave on your trip to be familiar with the layout of the book and perhaps to glean a few things ahead of time to be looking for as you go outdoors.

nature journal redwoods
Nature Journals done on the trail do not need to be fancy.

3. Bring along your nature journal or some pre-printed notebook pages. During down time it is nice to have supplies on hand to make a nature journal entry to record your nature study as you travel. Basic art supplies like markers or colored pencils are easy to pack. I also like watercolor pencils for nature journal entries. Keep it simple and light. Digital cameras are a lot of fun for children to use as they document their own view of the trip. Encourage your children to take photos of things that they observe for future reference in identifying or including in their nature journals.

My suggestions for nature journal supplies and then nature journal ideas can be found here:  
Nature Journals-Ideas and Tips.
 
In preparing for your trip, you could also look up a few of the Outdoor Hour Challenges before you travel, the first five challenges can be applied to any habitat. If you have the first Getting Started Challenges 1-10 ebook, you can have that loaded on your laptop and reference it as you travel.
Blog Logo 1

Fern Falls Jedediah Smith SP
My boys love to climb and this time they discovered banana slugs and salamanders.

4. I also like to look up nature centers or nature trails in the areas we visit. A good nature center visit can take an hour or two and can provide a spark to capture the interest of everyone in the family. The staff is usually knowledgeable about the local habitat, giving you advice on where to go and what to see. They also can help identify anything you have observed but can’t put a name to as you try to make your journal entries. Most nature centers have bookstores that can provide additional resources to follow-up your nature study time. I found this list of Nature Centers in the United States. (This list does not look complete but it will get you started.)

We are preparing for a camping trip of our own and I have used the suggestions above to gather ideas and resources ahead of time. You know we will share our results when we return from our coastal trip where we are hoping to find tidepools to explore, sandy beaches to walk, and redwood forests to hike in. We have some time before we set out so we will be thumbing through our field guides and looking up some additional information and redwood forests while we wait.

Hope you have the chance to spend some time outdoors this summer with your family AND include a little nature study.

This post is going to be a part of the Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival for nature study. You can submit your own entry HERE and the deadline is 6/13/11.



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Bird Study May 2011: Black-headed Grosbeak

Black Headed Grosbeak 1

We have a new feeder bird! I changed up our seed in the feeder and I started to catch a glimpse of a new colorful bird coming to visit. I could hear a new song in the backyard trees as well and I knew it sounded a bit familiar. It finally occurred to me that this was the same song that I heard earlier in the month on our hike to the natural bridge. It was the Black-headed grosbeak!

Black Headed Grosbeak 2
Sure enough….there are three that come to our feeders now.

They are such beautiful birds and I know now why they are called songbirds.

My field guide says this, “Song, rising and falling passages, resembles a robin’s song but more fluent and mellow.” This is the perfect description of their song. You can hear it in the video in THIS ENTRY or at this link on AllAboutBirds.

Black Headed Grosbeak 3
NotebookingPages.com has a great free resource for those of us who live on the West Coast…free bird notebook pages for the following birds: Red-tail hawk, Western scrub jay, Spotted towhee, House finch, Black-headed grosbeak, and Black-capped chickadee!
Here is your link: Free Bird Notebooking Pages
 
I took advantage of the free page for the Black-headed grosbeak and used it for my nature journal.

Black-headed Grosbeak Nature Journal
What a thrill to add a new bird to our backyard bird list….we started off the month of May thinking that our Tweet and See list was going to be sparse. Boy were we wrong! We not only have a large number of birds but a new one to report as well.

Another great week of nature study….another topic from the May Newsletter completed. We have our mammal still left to find but we may just revisit a wildflower instead if we can’t come up with a good mammal to study using the Handbook of Nature Study. Remember to submit your entries to the Outdoor Hour Challenge Blog Carnival to share your links just like you would for Mr. Linky.

You can really do any topic for your entry….I am hoping that you pick at least one thing from your own backyard and that you give the nature journal idea a try.

 
Don’t forget to use my discount code:
Use discount code = discount5 to save $5 on your $10+ purchase at NotebookingPages.com
Use discount code = discount10 to save $10 on your $20+ purchase at NotebookingPages.com

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Our Spring Tree Has Leaves: White Birch Limbs and Leaves

This post is part of our on-going series of Year-Long Tree Studies, Spring Challenge. You can see our previous studies here: Autumn and Winter.  If you haven’t started your own family’s Year-Long Tree Study, I encourage you to jump in now and start with a spring observation. I guarantee you will learn a lot!

“A person who has not had an intimate, friendly acquaintance with some special tree has missed something from life.”
Anna Botsford Comstock, A Study of a Tree

It has been with eagerness that we watched our white birch tree for signs of new leaves. This past week they seemed to appear overnight, gracefully blowing in the breezes that have come in the afternoon hours. Here is a video (you may need to click over to the blog to view it) that shows how the limbs are so fluid and dance in the wind. It isn’t very long…about half a minute.

We decided to focus on the limbs of the tree and see how they make that movement in the wind. It might have something to do with the shape and arrangement of the limbs. The limbs bend down towards the ground and are not stiff like the oak tree growing just a few feet away.

4 18 11 Birch tree limbs

They sort of spiral up the trunk….isn’t it pretty?

4 18 11 Birch Leaves and catkins

It could have something to do with the leaves as well so we took a look at the arrangement and shape as part of our spring study. The leaves point down and the petiole is long and slender. The leaves catch the slightest breeze just like the sail on a sailboat. They shake and sway and remind me of Robert Frost’s poem, Birches. We decided to include a part of the poem in our nature journal.

I’d like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

(Excerpt)

4 5 11 Birch Catkins

“Catkins form on the trees in summer, remaining tight, smooth, and closed throughout the winter. They begin to expand in early spring, with most flowering before the leaves appear, or at least before the leaves get too large. As catkins rely on wind to spread their pollen, this arrangement prevents the leaves from interfering with fertilization. After the female flowers are fertilized, the male catkins wither and drop.”
Read more at Suite101: Catkins in Spring.

Birch Nature Journal
So another season is beginning for our tree and we will look forward to observing it closely as the days tick by. There is always something new to learn and think about in this great nature study project.

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2011 Spring Series – Spring Tree Observations

Year+Long+Tree+Study+Spring+@handbookofnaturestudy.blogspot.com.jpg

Here’s the challenge for this week:  
Spring Tree Observations.
(click over to read the specifics)
This is the post from last year and in it you will find the pages in the Handbook of Nature Study to read in preparation and then some ideas for learning more about your tree that you picked to observe last autumn or winter.

We have been watching our tree get its leaves over the last few weeks. What a transformation! I hope you are able to revisit your family’s tree and get to see its spring beauty.  If you are new to the Outdoor Hour Challenge, please feel free to jump in with this season’s observations and get started on your own Year-Long Tree Study!

Here are the suggestions for a general tree study:

1. Pick a tree in your yard or on your street and look for its new leaves and blossoms if appropriate.
2. Is it just beginning to show leaves? Can you tell if your tree has all of its leaves yet?
3. Can you see any insects or birds in your tree?
4. Collect a few leaves to use for leaf rubbings in your nature journal. You could also make a leaf bouquet.
5. Compare two leaves from the same tree. Are they exactly alike?
6. Use your nature journal to record a sketch of the leaf and any blossoms.
7. How has the tree changed since autumn? Winter?

You may also be interested in my Spring Nature Study Ebooks!

Spring Series Cover

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OHC Blog Carnival: Grateful for Spring Nature Study

Spring Wildflowers with Insect
It is spring! For most of us we are starting to see the beginnings of a greener world with warmer temperatures and more outdoor activity. The poll on my Spring Squidoo lens shows that most readers experience the first signs of spring in the month of March. I know that the participants of the Outdoor Hour Challenge have been taking advantage of the spring weather and this blog carnival gives you lots of spring time inspiration.
 
I wanted to feature this entry and make sure to let you know about a special thank you I received from Angie (Pebblekeeper). What better way to start off this edition of the carnival! 
I love hosting the Outdoor Hour Challenges each week and this carnival is a fun way to keep you all in touch, as a way to build a community. Thank you for all your effort and support of nature study in your families. It is noticed. 
Enjoy your carnival!
ant
Winter Insects/Small Square Study 

fox

Winter Mammal Study
crocus
Early Spring Flowers/Bulbs Study
cherry tree
Signs of Spring Observations

frog with cattails
Spring Cattail Observations

Spring Series Cover
Schedule for Spring 2011

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Family Mammal Study – Unexpected Deer and Our Usual Squirrels

As part of preparing for our mammal study this week, I pulled our mammal field guide from our shelf to have for easy reference. I opened to the introductory pages and I would love to share a few thoughts from those pages with you in this post.

  • Most mammals are creatures of the darkness, only becoming active at night after dark and returning home again before dawn.
  • Most nocturnal mammals communicate by odor which humans cannot detect and with sounds which are frequently high pitched and low in volume.
  • Direct observation of most mammals is difficult except for a few species like chipmunks and squirrels.
  • The vocalizations of mammals have not been extensively explored and most make brief sounds called “call notes”.

3 11 11 walking trail deer

We were walking along our usual trail having a great conversation when my son twirled me around to get me to look up on the hill. He had spotted a few young deer not too far from where we were. They were slowly moving along, not really paying too much attention to us.

California mule deer are very common in our area and we often see groups of 8-10 deer alongside the road or in grassy meadows. My husband actually hit a deer with his truck last month when he was coming home from work…minimal damage and the deer bounced back up and ran off into the woods. He was lucky. He once hit a deer and it totaled the vehicle.

3 11 11 walking trail deer

We were planning on studying our backyard squirrels this week as part of our mammal study but we spent a little time reading up on the mule deer too. California mule deer are very graceful and agile mammals. They have lovely eyes but don’t let those innocent looking eyes fool you. They have been known to eat my garden down to the ground in one night.

Fox Squirrel in the Tree
There are three fox squirrels and one gray squirrel in our yard just about every day. They are in the bird feeders and up in the trees chattering at us and the dog pretty much all day long. I started off trying to keep them out of the feeders but it is an impossible task.

Fox Squirrel eating my seed bell
They are very acrobatic and can get to just about any of our feeders.

We spend time each day watching these very acrobatic mammals hop from limb to limb and then hang upside down to eat from the feeders.

Here is a coloring page for a Fox Squirrel.  We found this website that has a recording of the sound the fox squirrel makes.

Squirrel watercolor with photos (3)
Again, I ended up including photos as part of my nature journal entry to show the differences between the Western gray squirrel and the Fox squirrel.

One of my sons told me that it used to be an “event” when the gray squirrel showed up in the yard but now we have so many squirrels that they are commonplace. We have started to think of them as rodent pests rather than welcome visitors.

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Outdoor Hour Challenge Blog Carnival and Spring Nature Study 2011 Plans

Lavender

Outdoor Hour Challenge – Spring 2011 Plans

For all of you who have emailed me asking about what the plan is for our spring nature, I finally came to some concrete decisions. I decided I did not have time in my schedule to create a new set of challenges so we will be completing some of the challenges from last year along with our spring observations of our Queen Anne’s Lace.

If you purchased my Spring Series ebook in 2010, you are all set to go. If you would like to work from the challenges on the blog, they are on the tab at the top. If you would like to have all the challenges and the notebook pages on hand, you can purchase the ebook from this LINK.

Spring Series Cover
Schedule for Spring 2011

Please note that there are five more studies (apple tree, cats, snakes, earthworms, ants) included in the ebook that we will not be completing as part of the 2011 Spring Series. You are free to complete those challenges and post a link in the original challenge listed on the Spring tab at the top of my blog.

Outdoor Hour Challenge Blog Carnival

I apologize for the simplicity of the links this time around. I hope you take the time to check the entries out and leave behind some nice supportive comments. 🙂

Mourning Dove
Winter Bird Study- Great Backyard Bird Count

Cones and leaves
Winter Evergreens, Conifers, and Tree Study

Queen Anne's Lace winter
Winter Cattails, Weeds, and Queen Anne’s Lace

Salt Study

Winter Insects

Walking Trail Clouds and Sky
Winter Weather, Sky, and Snow

Getting Started Challenges 

  • Anne at Harvest Moon by Hand – #1, #2, and #3 

Thank you for all your participation. It has been an excellent month of nature study!

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2011 Winter Series Outdoor Hour Challenge #6 Salt Study and Winter Wednesday #6 Winter Weeds

Winter Weeds and Snow
Winter Weeds- Look for seeds, pods, or dried flowers.

This week’s combination of challenges will give you two very different subjects to consider.

Winter Series #6 Salt Study
Winter Wednesday #6 Winter Weeds

***The salt experiments are a fun way to learn about an everyday subject that all of us have in our homes. Salt crystalsYou might find the pages in the Handbook of Nature Study an interesting read as part of this challenge.

***Winter weeds are one of my favorite winter nature study subjects. If you would like to participate, here are a few suggestions from the challenge
1. Collect a variety of seeds from weeds in your local area and sketch them in your nature journal.
2. Gather a few varieties of weeds and display them in a vase.
3. Pick a weed you know you have and print out a coloring page for your nature journal.


My daughter has graciously made available her Salt Study Lapbook pdf to go along with this challenge. Please click over to her blog at Hearts and Trees to read more about it!

Winter Winter Wednesday Button