We had a chance to take a drive to one of our favorite local spots….a flower farm that specializes in growing and cultivating day lilies.
This is the perfect time of year to visit because so many of the early varieties are blooming.
This is one that I love and we have several in our home garden.
Wow! Look at the bright orange color! Stunning.
We wandered up and down the rows and rows of flowers and decided on one called, “Sachet of Lemon.” I forgot to actually take a photo of this one, but when it blooms in our garden I will share a photo of it with you.
We are to our very last bird challenge of this series. I can’t tell you how much our family has enjoyed learning more about the familiar birds in our neighborhood. Each bird is now a little bit more of a friend since taking some time to read and observe more about them.
Along with learning more about our backyard birds, we also have learned to identify different aspects of the bird and its behavior. We learned about the beaks, the feet, the eyes, and the feathers of many birds that we may some time come in contact with during our outdoor time. This knowledge is knowledge that we can apply to all birds and I know we are getting better at identifying birds since we took time to read through our field guide.
Inside Preparation Work:
1. Read the section in the Handbook of Nature Study about pigeons on pages 50-53. I found the information very interesting so don’t be tempted to skip it because you think you know all there is to know about pigeons.
Also read pages 91-94 about the mockingbird.
2. Read in the Handbook of Nature Study the section on the migrations of birds on pages 35-37.
“Birds that travel are called migratory birds. If the spring migrants remain with us for the summer, we call them our summer residents. Fall migrants that remain with us for the winter are called winter residents. The migrants that do not remain with us but pass on to spend the summer or winter in some other area are called our transients or visitors.” Handbook of Nature Study, page 36
3. Read in Backyard Birds pages 44-47 about the pigeon and the mockingbird. You can follow the links above to AllAboutBirds.org and click on the button to listen to a recording of each bird call. If you are keeping a list of bird calls (see challenge 5), you can add this week’s birds to your list.
4. Peterson Field Guide: Use the index to look up the pigeon and the mockingbird. Use the information to learn more about the field marks and the behavior of each of these birds. Use the maps at the back of the field guide to determine the range and/or migratory patterns of this weeks birds or any of the other birds we have studied during the challenges. You will find the correct map by looking up the entry and then noticing the “M” code that will correspond with a map in the back of the book. Notice the explanation of the colors used on the maps by using the key on page 359(W) and page 305(E).
Outdoor Hour Time:
“Pigeons are found in every city. Look for them in parks and open areas.” Backyard Birds, page 45
“The mockingbird is the only one of our common birds that sings regularly at night. It imitates the songs of other birds and has also a beautiful song of its own.” Handbook of Nature Study, page 93
This week you should be able to find a pigeon to observe up close. Although pigeons are not usually a *favorite* bird, you can use its example to take note of the beak and feet of a real live bird. I also enjoy seeing all the variations in colors of pigeons and some are quite beautiful with their iridescent colors.
Plan on taking your ten to fifteen minutes of outdoor time to observe birds. Practice all your birding skills.
Sit quietly and listen for bird calls.
For each bird you see, take note of its shape, size, beak, feet, colors, tail, wings, flight pattern, and any interesting behavior.
Take a walk in your neighborhood and look for places you might think you will find a bird: up in a tree, in a pond, on a fence, in a bush, in some tall grass, alongside a meadow, near some park benches, or at a feeder.
Get up early and go out birding at dawn or just a little after as the birds wake up and start their morning singing.
Don’t forget to fill your bird feeders and birdbaths each week! Even though this is the last official bird challenge you can keep your study going as long as you wish and your neighborhood birds have come to count on a meal and a bath in your yard by now.
Follow Up Activity for the Pigeon and the Mockingbird
Once you are inside from your outdoor time, discuss birds you observed and try to recall as many specifics as you can about each bird. Help your child get started with this activity by stating something you observed. For instance, if you observed a pigeon, you might say that you noticed that the pigeon’s feet let him waddle along the ground and not hop like a robin. Or you could say that the pigeon has a very small beak compared to the blue jay. You get the idea. You are helping your child recall things that he observed and then compare and contrast them to other facts he already knows about different birds.
Add any new birds to your bird life list, either in the back of the Backyard Bird book or in your nature journal.
You can also complete the migration notebook page from NotebookingPages.com’s bird set (shown below).
Follow Up Activity For Other Birds Observed:
Use the process described above to discuss any bird observed during your Outdoor Hour time. If you identified the bird, use the Peterson Field Guide, the Handbook of Nature Study, or the AllAboutBirds.org website to research any additional information. You can complete a notebook page for each bird if you wish. You will find general bird notebook pages in the NotebookingPages.com set or you can look up your bird in the table of contents of the Cornell bird coloring book.
Also I am highly recommending that you purchase the Bird Bundle from NotebookingPages.com as a great supplement to your study of birds using the Outdoor Hour Challenge. Note: These are affiliate links.
Use code discount5 to save $5 on any purchase $10 or more from the NotebookingPages.com Shop. (This does not include membership purchases.)
We were hoping to observe some birds from this challenge but we never had an opportunity come up. We will have our eyes out for a woodpecker, a nuthatch, and a towhee. We have heard plenty of woodpeckers and towhees out in the woods as we walk, but they never come close by and let us have a good look for this challenge.
We have seen some birds to note here on the blog. We saw our very first ever grouse when we were out today. After our encounter with the sound of the grouse at Yosemite last month, we were prepared when we saw a grouse here locally. I did not have my camera so there is no photo but here is a link to the kind of grouse that we saw: Grouse
We also saw a group of Canada Goose this past weekend. I think they sort of qualify as black and white birds. Don’t you?
We also saw these ducks.
In the Handbook of Nature Study it says to study the goose and the duck and compare them. The questions in the lesson have you comparing different features of the duck and the goose like their beaks and feet.
We made a journal entry showing different kinds of bird feet. This was an interesting sketching assignment and we had to work carefully from the images on this website: Bird Feet.
Although we didn’t see any woodpeckers, we did see evidence that there are some nearby.
This is a tree that the acorn woodpeckers have made holes in the bark and then stuffed acorns in for future meals. Here is a better look at the acorns.
Amazing that they make the holes just the right size.
This is what the AllAboutBirds website says about the Acorn woodpecker.
“All members of an Acorn Woodpecker group spend large amounts of time storing acorns. Acorns typically are stored in holes drilled into a single tree, called a granary tree. One granary tree may have up to 50,000 holes in it, each of which is filled with an acorn in autumn.”
We come across these granary trees quite frequently in our area.
Here is a photo of a white-headed woodpecker that I took last summer at Yosemite.
He was not shy and we had a great time watching him work.
Although we were not successful in spotting this challenge’s birds, we did take quite a bit of time to look for, listen to, and learn about the birds in the challenge.
Figwort Family, blooms March-August, great source of nectar for hummingbirds.
This is the third kind of monkeyflower we have identified this year!
The river was so green and lovely as we hiked along the trail. There were a few people floating down in tubes, enjoying the the cold water and the hot sun.
If you are interested, I have been updating my Yosemite Wildflower blog this week and I would love for you to pop over there and check it out. Here is the link: Yosemite Wildflowers
All of the photos are from our trips last summer to Yosemite. I am aiming to finish all of the photos I have stored up before we take our next trip in July. I still have quite a few to go, but I am making headway.
It truly is amazing that I have been working on documenting the local wildflowers for months now and I am still finding new flowers every day. I did not imagine that this project would become so big that I would be fighting to keep up. Here is the latest batch of wildflowers from our walking trail.
Tufted Vetch….when you stop to really look at the vetch it is gorgeous.
Look at the purple details on the blooms.
I love that there are new things to learn about around every corner. My boys are beginning to spot new flowers as we walk along and that makes me very happy. 🙂
We have taken walks at least once a day for the last week and it feels great to be outdoors so much with the family. We had a picnic today…nothing special, just some sandwiches and drinks but the view of the river was perfect.
We also saw a this young deer that became like a statue when we stopped to take his photo. Look at those ears.
You will have to click the photo to zoom in on the deer.
I think that catches us up for now with the wildflowers. We are on the downhill slide towards summer now so things will change again around here as far as what is blooming.
I have been on the look out for the first of the Queen Anne’s lace of the season and yesterday I saw it alongside our walking trail.
My local field guide says this:
“Wild carrot, or Queen Anne’s lace, is a biennial and its large root distinguishes it from the more common rattlesnake weed. Also, Queen Anne’s lace is a common name used for many species of plants with delicate white flowers.”
Here is a section of the Handbook of Nature Study, page 542:
“…this medallion flower attributed to Queen Anne is well worth studying. It belongs to the family Umbelliferae, which one of my small pupils always called ‘umbrelliferae’because, he averred, they have umbrella blossoms. In the case of Queen Anne’s lace the flower-cluster, or umbel, is made up of many smaller umbels, each a most perfect flower-cluster in itself.”
“The wild carrot is known in some localities as the ‘bird’s-nest weed, ‘ because the maturing fruit-clusters, their edges curving inward look like little birds’ nests.”
Handbook of Nature Study, page 544
I know that spring is well along now that the Queen Anne’s Lace is in bloom. It will be here all summer to enjoy.
Here are a few of the websites I have used in my study of wildflowers this term:
CalFlora.org -specific to California and free to join. Northwest Common Wildflowers -National Park service coloring book California Wildflowers -California Academy of Sciences, index by color.
This completes our families focus work on flowers, both in our garden and with a few wildflowers. We are going to be choosing a new focus for the summer… probably butterflies! Get ready to see what we learn and how we get started.
On another topic, more art than nature study, I have a question for you: do you have any tips for drawing/painting white flowers? We’re trying to draw these flowers with watercolor pencils right now. In the past, I’ve drawn a background behind, and left the white. Any other ideas? It’s hard!
I did some experimenting and found a way to easily include white flowers in your nature journal. Using a watercolor wash and then putting the white flowers on top is one solution to the problem.
Steps:
Make a watercolor wash on your page and then let it dry.
Sketch lightly with pencil your flower’s leaves, stem, and blossom.
Use watercolors and paint your leaves and stems.
Use white watercolor paint and very little water to fill in the white flower, keeping the paint very opaque.
Let your paints dry and then go back to add darker details and shading.
I really like this book and even though it says it is for use with acrylics, I find it perfectly applicable for watercolors as well. If you click the Amazon.com link below, you can preview the pages inside. I love the visual index at the end of the book.
Many families wait to offer watercolors from a tube to their children. In our family, we found these watercolors to be a lot of fun and the boys learned early how to only squirt out a little at a time. I gave each one their own set along with their own palette and brushes. With a little training, you can offer these paints in your family as well.
The house sparrow and the mourning dove are our constant companions. The song of the mourning dove is easily recognizable and we have a pair that perch in a certain spot on the telephone wires around the corner from our house.
We have several kinds of sparrows in our yard but the most prevalent is the white-crowned sparrow. In the winter, we have scores of white-crowned sparrows that come to our feeders every day. They prefer the platform feeder or to clean up under the birdfeeder…aren’t they helpful?
The other brown bird that we see in large numbers at certain times of the year is the cedar waxwing. I especially like this bird for some reason. It reminds me of a brown cardinal and is easily recognizable by its set of field marks. We had a flock of around sixty cedar waxwings in our tree one time and it was so much fun to watch them.
“Birds do most of their singing in the early morning and during the spring and early summer months.”
Handbook of Nature Study
Another brown bird that we have in our neighborhood that we can recognize by its call is the California quail. This bird has an easy call to remember…he says “Chi-ca-go!” Click the link to the Cornell site and you can find the button to hear his call.
The California quail is our state bird and in our area they are abundant. We enjoy watching this bird scurry along the ground with his top feathers bobbing up and down.
By the way, have you noticed that Cornell’s bird site has been updated and improved? I am loving the new look and the organization of it so much better. They provide such a great service to all of us amateur birders.
Okay, one last brown bird (at least the ones I see are mostly brown) that we have a lot of in our area. The wild turkey is not the most beautiful bird in the world. The photo on Cornell’s website actually makes him look quite elegant but in real life the turkeys we see are scrawny, blue faced things that usually end up in the middle of the road trying to look elegant. The males will fluff out their feathers to impress the ladies from time to time but for the most part the wild turkey is just a nuisance to the rest of us.
I think that about wraps our brown birds for this challenge. We have a few more but this entry is already too long. I will save the other birds for another time.
If you can find this book at your library or purchase it used on Amazon.com, you find it is a great beginner’s book on birds. It is a picture book and each page is a watercolor painting of a common bird with its name. I would definitely use this book with preschoolers or grammar stage children.
We have this little guy on the shelf in our living room. Frequently someone will get him down and play his call. He happens to be my favorite of all the Audubon plush birds.
We have some sweet pea vines in our front yard but they are not blooming yet. There is a spot where they are growing wild alongside the roadway nearby so we were able to get a small piece of a vine with blossoms and buds to observe and then draw into our nature journals.
“The sweet pea has some of its leaflets changed to tendrils which hold it to the trellis. Its flower is like that of the clover, the upper petal forming the banner, the two side petals the wings, and the two united lower petals the keel which protects the stamens and the pistil.” Handbook of Nature Study, page 589
Want to see a demonstration? Here is a very short video we made showing the different parts of the sweet pea flower.
“In nature study the work begins with any plant or creature which chances to interest the pupil.” Handbook of Nature Study, page 5
The above sweet pea sketch is from Amanda’s nature study from many, many years ago. She is a flower girl and her journals have always been filled with colorful blooms of all kinds.
I love the delicate colors of this flower as it matures and blossoms.
Can you see the flower parts there between the wing petals?
The sweet pea is now safely recorded in our nature journals. This was a perfect study for this morning in the cool air in the shade. The afternoons are getting hot so our nature study is going to be limited to early morning and the evening hours from now on.
I copied the poem about sweet peas from the Handbook of Nature Study section on sweet peas. I think it describes this flower perfectly.
In other garden news…….
The garden is growing in this hot weather.
Our sunflowers are growing at an incredible rate right now.
The sweet smell and taste of ripe strawberries are a daily occurrence. Lovely, just lovely.
So a little late today for my entry but we have been busy with finishing up term exams and deciding on unit celebration plans. Please feel free to study any flower you have on hand and share your results on Mr. Linky so I can pop over and check it out. You can also just leave me a comment if you wish.
If you want to see our original list of flowers with links to all the entries, here you go: Wednesday Flower Study
Our family has one more Wednesday Flower Study to complete next week and then we will be focusing on something else…not sure what yet but something close at hand. 🙂
We took a hike to the river today because it was *hot*!
Twenty minute drive, 1.2 mile hike and then we were at the river.
Since I am tired tonight, you will get a photo essay instead of a lot of words. 🙂
Mr. A brought his bike and decided to take the scenic route….up the hill, across the ridge, and then down to the river.
We took the old ranch road which is much more direct…..no trees but a shorter distance.
You can’t beat this landscape of flowers and green grasses.
We made it to the river and there were lots and lots of river rafters coming by the whole time we were there. Many of them were wearing wetsuits since the water is still ice cold. We sat, watched, and waved as they paraded by in their rubber boats. Some of us took off our shoes and dipped our toes in to cool off. The sun was hot, the water was cold, and we had a glorious time sitting on the rocks.
There were a few kayakers as well.
Even Kona enjoyed watching the boats. One boat had a dog with a lifejacket on and Kona thought maybe she would like to go down the whitewater in a raft. We have a raft but we have not taken it out in some time. Hmmmm…..
Wildflowers were still to be found along the banks of the river. I think these are some kind of aster.
As the afternoon progressed and we made our way back up the hill to the trailhead, we again saw the thunderclouds building up over the Sierra.
There was some complaining about the heat on the way back up to the car…Okay, so it was me whining about the heat. 🙂 It was not only hot but it was humid as well which makes it even worse and that combination always makes me cranky. We had ice cold drinks waiting in the car so that helped my mood just thinking about it as I hiked those 1.2 miles back up the hill.
Hope you had some outdoor time this weekend. We enjoyed every minute of ours.
