I love watching and counting our backyard birds. As part of Project Feederwatch I am observing two days a week, a few minutes per day. Participating in this citizen science project has brought such focus to our birdwatching. We constantly are reminded that if we didn’t put in the effort, we would miss out on so many learning opportunities.
We saw a House Finch last week that has eye disease. This led to a bit of research on the All About Birds website. We learned the causes and the action we need to take when we see a House Finch with an eye disorder. You can read more on Cornell’s Website.
Today we saw a bunch of Juncos…one even posed on the back deck railing. Look at those feet. It spurred me on to pull out the bird feet activity from a few weeks ago to try to discover what kind of feet the Junco has.
It was quite an exciting afternoon when we spotted two Ruby Crowned Kinglets in our front yard. If you look closely in the center of this photo you will spy a little bird with red feathers on his head. He is fast so I wasn’t able to get a very clear photo of him but there he is! He is so light that he can land on branches of the butterfly bushes and they don’t even sag. He can sort of hover over the branch as well…amazing. I was able a few years ago to get a good photo in this entry: November Birds.
Here is our November 2013 List of Birds:
House Finch
White Crowned Sparrow
Dark Eyed Junco
Oak Titmouse
Anna’s Hummingbird
Lesser Goldfinch
American Goldfinch
Spotted Towhee
Western Bluebird
White Breasted Nuthatch
Cedar Waxwing
European Starling
Western Scrubjay
Bewick’s Wren – new to our life list
Northern Mockingbird
Ruby Crowned Kinglet
I am so looking forward to December bird watching!
Join us for the 2013-2014 Outdoor Hour Challenges!
Time for Project Feederwatch to begin for the season! I am ready to go this year and have me days planned for observing our feeders. It only takes a few minutes on two consecutive days each week to participate. If you miss a week, that is okay too…just pick up when you can.
I love weaving a citizen science project like this into our lives. We have several feeders we can see from our windows and keeping them filled with seed is easy. Those feeders become the focal point of our bird observations because for Project Feederwatch you only count birds that come to eat.
We have participated for the last two years and it is interesting to compare our numbers from year to year.
We are already seeing some of our winter residents arriving from their summer migration areas.
What are you seeing at your feeders this month? Are you anticipating the return of any birds to your feeders?
Here is what we had at our feeders this week:
Dark eyed Junco
White-crowned Sparrow
House Finches
Anna’s Hummingbirds
Spotted Towhee
Western Scrub Jays
Titmouse
Starlings (in the trees, not the feeder though)
Goldfinches
White-breasted nuthatches
Plus a NEW BIRD!!!
This is the first time ever I spotted a Bewick’s Wren in my backyard! I was out trying to capture my Spotted towhee when this little guy caught my eye. He was flitting around in the shrubs and he ended up on the lilac branches in my butterfly garden. I wasn’t sure if I could get him because he was fast! But, there he is and the image is clear enough that I was able to go in and identify him using WhatBird? and AllAboutBirds.com. He is new on my life list and he will be going into my nature journal soon.
I will be sharing my bird lists each month and if you do the same you can drop me a comment and I will come and take a look.
You may be interested in following my Nature Study-Birds Pinterest board!
Watching birds is a daily activity that all in our family enjoy. Mondays and Tuesdays are Project Feederwatch days so we tally birds and keep official lists on those days and then share our data online. It is a simple routine that we look forward to each week. Since we have been participating in Project Feederwatch and the Great Backyard Bird Count for many years now, there are rarely birds we can’t identify but we did not start off with that level of knowledge. One bird at a time, we added to our life list.
Now that we can tell a Purple finch from a House finch and a House sparrow from a White-Crowned sparrow, that counting goes much faster. We have our clipboard, binoculars, and field guide right in the front window where we can view our bird feeding station and bird bath.
This month’s Handbook of Nature Study Newsletter has several smaller grids for you to use while observing birds in your yard. Each of these grids will help train your eyes to see different aspects of the birds and keep a simple record of what you see. Being able to name the colors and to describe the various bird parts is a first step to learning to use that information to identify your backyard birds with a field guide. The two grids in the newsletter are perfect for beginners or younger children and the other tally boxes will give your older students something to use with their nature journals.
I encourage you to print this page out of the newsletter and keep it with your bird watching resources. There is also a notebook page for your nature journal to record your feeder bird activity.
I was inspired by The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady by Edith Holden to include a poem and perhaps a sketch a bird’s egg in my nature journal. If you have the book, pull it out and add it to your nature table, open to one of the March pages which feature birds.
I am excited to share my recent Florida adventure with you. I was able to add quite a few birds to my life list while visiting Sanibel and Captiva Islands as well as visiting the Corkscrew Swamp Sactuary and Clam Pass Beach Park in Naples.
It was a trip of a lifetime and I thoroughly enjoyed my birding…wished I had taken my better camera but I still have quite a few interesting things to share. I hope to have the entry done by next week.
So have you gotten started with your bird grid studies?
I had in mind a totally different post for you this week but our internet has been down for over a week so working online has been limited. Instead, I have a collection of recent bird photos that show some of our feeder birds that we enjoy everyday. As the leaves fall from the trees, observing birds becomes much easier. We also have more of a variety to enjoy this time of year and keeping track of them for Project Feederwatch becomes our normal routine at least two days a week.
The Outdoor Hour Challenges this month focuses on the weather and we have been noting how the weather affects the birds in our yard. We have had ice on the birdbaths quite a few mornings this week and if I don’t go out and break it up, the birds skid around on it which makes me laugh.
House finches can seem common at the feeders…oh, just another finch. But, when you see these colored birds through the eye of a camera, you realize they are not just another bird. They come in varying shades of pink, orange, red, and purple…they come day after day and provide a happy bird song (listen on All About Birds to hear the sweet sounds of a finch).
Our backyard Anna’s hummingbirds are still at the feeders every day. They have a particular tree they sit in and most days it is on the same little branch that hangs over one end of our deck. I can hear them making their little chattering noises whenever I am outside. In this image the feathers look black but it is just the way the light is hitting him. If he tilts his head in just the right way or the sun hits him just right, his chin and throat are the most brilliant pink and his body is a dazzling green. I always thought that hummingbirds were delicate creatures but I have seen them at my feeder in the pouring rain and when we have snow. All About Birds says that they weigh the same as a nickel….imagine that!
The return of the Dark eyed junco is complete for the season. We started having one or two a day under the feeders but now I am counting 12-20 every day. They mostly poke around under the seed feeders to glean some food but I have noticed that they are hanging out at the suet feeder as well. They do give the woodpeckers first chance at the suet but as soon as the woodpecker flies away, they hop on and have a meal.
Our Northern Mockingbirds make daily appearances at the berry vines in our front yard. I read on All About Birds that they switch to an almost all berry diet in the fall and winter. The other fact I learned about the mockingbird is that they don’t sing at this time of the year. The website says that they sing from February to August and then from September to early November. Isn’t that interesting? I am going to record the dates I hear them sing in my neighborhood…a little extra project for me.
The Nuttall’s woodpecker is a frequent diner at the suet feeder. We seem to have a female that is rather shy but I have observed her quite a bit as she hops up and down the trees near the feeder. She shares the feeder many times with the little White-breasted nuthatches.
The excitement this season is that we appear to have a wintering Red-breasted nuthatch who comes daily to the trees outside my window. At first I thought he was my usual White-breasted nuthatch but I read online that the Red-breasted has an eye stripe….sure enough, our nuthatch had an eyestripe. He is super quick and I have yet to capture a clear image but you can see in this one that he definitely has an eyestripe! Hopefully I will get a good image of him for my nature journal sometime this winter.
Project Feederwatch has helped bring my bird observation skills to the next level. In just a few minutes a day, I have learned so much more about the bird life right outside my window. What a gift this activity gives…hopefully you enjoy seeing my bird friends and are inspired to start learning about your own backyard birds.
Take it one bird at a time and enjoy!
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 to pop over there now).
I love the way this image came out with the gray sky as the background and then the shapes of the sticker balls and leaves.
The bird watching in our neighborhood has significantly improved with cooler weather. The number and variety of birds has been amazing! Every day I end up with my camera and binoculars viewing some new bird visitor….in my feeder, under my feeder, in the berry bushes, in the pistache tree, in the birch tree, in the sweet gum tree.
This was obviously on another day when we had crystal clear skies. This Western bluebird and many of his friends were eating the fruits of the pistache tree. These are such pretty birds and they always seem to come in a flock.
I love it when I load the photos onto my desktop and I find I have captured a “moment”. This is another Western bluebird image showing his magnificent wings and ability to grab a bite to eat on the fly. Love it!
Here is another one of those surprise images. I think this is a starling and I love the way it shows his legs and feet and speckled belly.
We had a couple of days this month when we had turkey vultures by the tens all soaring over our house. All of those black specks are turkey vultures just soaring and swirling around. We looked it up on the internet and there is an official name for this….a kettle of turkey vultures.
We also had one day where the sparrows came by the hundreds to eat at our feeders, in the trees, and on the street as well. It was an amazing sight. We have been counting birds as part of Project Feederwatch a couple of days a week.
Here is my list:
House sparrows
House finches
White-crowned sparrows
Dark eyed juncos
Titmouse
Anna’s hummingbirds
Lesser goldfinches
Spotted towhees
Western bluebirds
White-breasted nuthatches
Cedar waxwings
American robins
Mourning doves
European starlings
Next month one of the Outdoor Hour Challenges is to note how the weather affects animals and birds in our neighborhood. This will be a fun way to see how our autumn birds stack up against other seasons.
It is that time of year again! Time to start counting birds in your feeders and joining thousands of other families in reporting your data to Cornell University.
Project Feederwatch officially starts on November 10, 2012. How about a short explanatory video?
This is a project that your whole family can participate in and enjoy over the next few months. It is easy to get started by visiting the Project Feederwatch website. You can download their free instructional handbook: Project Feederwatch.
We completed our first year of Project Feederwatch last year and it was something that we totally enjoyed doing. You can see our December list of birds and some of our bird images in this entry: December Bird List With Two New Birds!
I know that participating in this project helped us learn more about our local birds, we got better at identifying our feeder birds, and we discovered some new feathered friends. Oh, and we helped Cornell University in their bird research at the same time!
Many of you participate in the Great Backyard Bird Count each year and Project Feederwatch is a way to take that experience and build on it. The commitment is very similar except that you count birds two days in a row each week (you pick the days) and then turn in your data using a personal ID number. Project Feederwatch keeps track of your results.
There is a $15 participation fee but with that you receive a big packet of information and a bird poster to hang on your wall. You can sign up here: Project Feederwatch.
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).
Free Resource!
One last resource that you can download for free: Winter Bird Highlights. I think this is an awesome resource and I have enjoyed reading it and it has me all fired up for some bird watching and counting!
What a great weekend of bird watching we had as we participated in the Great Backyard Bird Count! We have finished our counting and I thought I would post our results.
We compared our numbers to the last three year’s numbers and there is virtually no change. The only significant bird missing from our list is the Cedar Waxwing. We usually have a flock come through during the GBBC weekend and this year we did not. We were talking about why that may be and the only piece of information that may be significant is that every other year we have had at least one day of snow on the GBBC weekend. We have not seen the flocks of Cedar Waxwings that we usually see this time of year come through yet. What does that mean? Maybe nothing but it is worthy of noting.
Our family really enjoys the bird count each year and now that we are participating in Project Feederwatch we have become very good at recognizing our feeder birds. Learning to identify your backyard birds is easy and you can take it one bird at a time. Don’t get overwhelmed and make it fun for the family.
Bird Outdoor Hour Challenges
There is a series of bird nature study challenges here on my blog. Each challenge helps your family get to your own backyard birds. I invite you to use these free challenges as a way to develop a love of birds in 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).
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.
We spend a lot of time observing feeder birds as part of Project Feederwatch so this week’s focus on winter feeder birds is a perfect way to dig a little deeper. We have developed quite a list of backyard birds as part of this project. You can see our list here: Handbook of Nature Study – December Bird List. We have never seen a chickadee at our feeder but we still did the research as part of this Winter Bird Study Challenge.
We stared our nature study time focused on Chickadees as suggested in the More Nature Study Book 2 challenge. We pulled out the field guides and looked up to see what kind of chickadees we may see in our area.
My son also used Cornell’s All About Birds site to read more on the Mountain Chickadee which appears to be the only chickadee we may possibly observe. He completed the advanced notebook page from the ebook using information from the website.
We have heard the Mountain Chickadee on hikes up the mountain but have never actually seen one that I can remember. You can be sure we will keep our ears and eyes alert when we are out in that area again.
Since we didn’t get to observe a chickadee this week, I gave them the option to choose one of our feeder birds to learn a little more about and complete a notebook page recording their findings.
I chose the Mourning Dove which is a regular visitor to our front and backyard feeders. If I see one dove, I always look for the mate. They travel in pairs and seem to look out for each other as they bob along eating seed that has fallen from the platform feeders. I used a coloring page from Cornell’s Feeder Bird coloring book. I always feel so clumsy when I try to sketch a bird so having the simple outline to work from makes my journaling more enjoyable.
My son did my Project Feederwatch bird count with me today as part of this challenge. He looked up three additional birds in the field guide to complete his winter bird study.
December Bird List – Our Family’s On-Going Record of Our Bird Sighting A Life Project
We have had a busy and full month watching birds in our yard and as part of our December travels. Project Feederwatch has become a natural part of our weekly routine and helps us take a few minutes two days a week to count birds that come to our feeders. First a few interesting photos and then this month’s bird list!
First off, our sweet and fabulous White-breasted nuthatch resident…or at least one of the three that entertain us everyday with their acrobatics on our backyard tree trunks. Ups and downs and lots of pecking are observed as we watch out the window. They also have a very distinct bird sound that they make and we are alerted to look up when we are outside and they are present. If you click the link above and click the Pacific song, you will hear what our nuthatch sounds like (there is an Eastern song as well).
I had to zoom this one in and crop it to show you this cute little guy and his expression.
Our beloved California Towhee in the feeder….usually he scratches around under the feeder but today he showed up for pictures. Isn’t he interesting with his pink-orange rump and pink-orange around the eye? There is always a pair in the yard and they don’t ever stray very far from each other. We learned that the colored patch under the tail is called the “crissum”.
Here is the other half of the pair….up on the branch, waiting for a turn in the feeder. (Males and females look alike.)
Since we started participating in Project Feederwatch, we have seen three of these Spotted Towhees in the yard. They are strikingly beautiful birds and since they are not year-round residents we try to enjoy them while they are here.
I love the way this bird friend is clinging to the twig and posing. You can see the dried up blackberries on the vine that we left from the summer garden. The birds are seen frequently stopping by for a purple snack.
The Western bluebird enjoys a little bath this time in our front yard. I still get excited when he comes to visit. They usually come in a small bunch and then leave all at the same time. Lovely.
Here is the very best shot of the Anna’s Hummingbird at our feeder that I could capture to share. The flash accidentally went off but that really shows his beautiful ruby/pink/iridescent color. We have one or two at a time in the feeder these days, usually a male and a female. There might be more than two since the feeder is emptied frequently even at this time of the year.
In Our Yard – mostly at the feeders
Spotted towhee
Dark-eyed junco
House sparrow
White-crowned sparrow
Mourning dove
Western bluebird
Mockingbird
Western scrub jay
American robin
White-breasted nuthatch
California towhee
House finches
Lesser goldfinches
Anna’s hummingbird
Oak titmouse
Ruby-crowned kinglet
Acorn woodpecker
Out and About:
American crow
Northern flicker
California quail
Steller’s jay
Wild turkeys
Brewer’s blackbird
Pigeons
White-tailed kite ***New to our life list
Red-tail hawk
Barn swallow
Bewick’s wren ***New to our life list
Downy woodpecker – hanging on a tall weed (more on that later)
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).
I would love for other families to join ours in watching your feeder birds. It is super easy and you just need to devote a few minutes a week to getting to know your feeder birds one bird at a time. Email me with any questions you have about the program.
So which bird photo did you like the most? I think I like the California towhee in the feeder the best since it is one that I have been trying to snap for awhile now.
Our front yard feeder has been busy, busy, busy the last few weeks. The colder nights and mornings seem to draw the birds out to our feeders and it is a joy to watch each day from our front window. I joined Project Feederwatch this year for the very first time and I am thoroughly enjoying counting birds two days a week…just a few minutes a day.
We have had some wonderful bird visitors to enjoy and it makes me happy to see them spending time in our yard plantings and feeders.
Here is our beautiful Western bluebird in the Pistache tree. We don’t see these regularly so it is a treat when they flock into the trees to snack and then sun themselves.
Our most exciting new friend is the Ruby-crowned kinglet. We have nicknamed him Rudy the Ruby. He looks much like a little goldfinch but there is a bright orange patch on the top of his head…the feathers sort of ruffle up to show the color. These images are taken through our living room window when Rudy was sitting in the bushes looking into the house right at me. He came four days in a row and landed on the same branch….I loved being able to get a really good look at him up close. Thanks Rudy.
Here he is with his feathers down. Interesting huh?
This is the first year we placed a birdbath in the frontyard and I am always amazed at how many birds each day come to bathe and drink from this water source. I highly recommend putting out a birdbath to attract bird visitors. We found that if we put a few rocks in the middle of the birdbath, making the water a little more shallow, more birds actually bathe. Don’t they look like they are having fun?
Now for our November Bird List:
Yard and Feeders
California Towhee
American Robin
Western scrub jay
House sparrows
House finches – really pink right now
Lesser goldfinches
Anna’s hummingbird – still several birds that come everyday to the feeder
White-breasted nuthatch
Spotted towhee
Oak titmouse
Dark-eyed juncos
White-crowned sparrows
European starlings
Western bluebirds
Great horned owl – hooting 5 AM
Mourning doves – sweet pair
Ruby-crowned kinglet – new to our life list!
Travels around town and to the Sierra
American Crow
Canada geese
Brewer’s blackbirds
Steller’s jay
Pigeons
Turkey vulture
Snowy egret – flying
Red-tail hawk
California quail
Bald eagle!
Mallards
White-headed woodpecker
California gulls
Osprey
Common raven
This was the best birding month in a very long time. My field guide has been busy and our bird list is always handy.
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).
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