Kids and Nature

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Song sparrow

Today's nature calendar task:

The song sparrow is due.

We haven't seen any song sparrows yet, but it is nice to know what birds we should be looking for at this time of year. The song sparrow has a lovely song, (hence it's name). Listen to the recording at the above link.

The sparrows can be quite tricky to tell apart, since they are all brown and roughly the same size. The song sparrow has a black spot in the middle of his breast (a bow tie!) and his breast has some stripes.

It is helpful to know where to look for birds. I've seen the Song Sparrow in my backyard, and at parks. He likes to be near water.

It is difficult, but very useful, to learn the songs of birds (enature.com has a more comprehensive list). All of a sudden you know what birds are there even though you can't see them. Start with the most common birds. Some birds have a little phrase that goes with their song, for example the Robin says: Cheerily, cheery up, cheerio. Some birds sing their name, like the Chickadee.

Kids can learn the songs too, perhaps even easier than us adults. You probably know a few bird songs already. Pick a few more to add to your repetoire. Listen to recordings, or follow that bird song to find out who is singing on your next nature walk.

Monday, March 9, 2009

Canada geese

Today's nature calendar task:

Watch for the V-shaped flights of Canada geese flying north.

The nature task for February 28th was: "Who will see the first Robin?" When I read that I thought to myself, "It's still February. It's too early for the Robins." On March 4th we saw our first Robin!

We did see the geese flying in a V today. They were making quite a racket.

This photo is from the middle of December when the geese were leaving. Our favorite conservation area has a small lake that was gradually freezing over. They had been sitting on the ice near an open patch of water and were taking off in groups. Only three months later and they are on their way back.

Sunday, March 8, 2009

Attracting backyard birds

Today's nature calendar task:

Write to National Parks of Canada, Ottawa, for "Attracting Birds with food and Water" and Bird Houses and their Occupants".

Well, this nature calendar was written in the 1940's, so I'm not sure if the National Parks system of Canada still have these books / pamphlets available. There is no need for them, however, since we have the world at our fingertips thanks to the internet. How to attract birds is a comprehensive site, check out their links too. They have a good section at the end about attracting butterflies as well.

Goldfinch, April 2008

Today's task has me thinking about some changes I could make to our yard. It is already fairly bird friendly, but there are always things you can do. Here are my rambling thoughts on improving our yard:

We have five bird feeders in our yard. Three have black oil sunflower seeds, one has nyger seed for the goldfinches, and we have one suet feeder. Perhaps I could add a peanut feeder, although I suspect it will just feed my resident squirrel population.

A bird bath would also be a nice addition. We used to have a small pond in our yard, and the sound of running water attracted a lot of birds. I had to fill it in when I couldn't supervise the backyard enough with the kids.

Cardinal, May 2008

I have many native asters planted in my yard. This year I didn't get around to cutting them down after they died and I left the dead stalks and flower heads all winter. I actually saw some goldfinches hanging off my asters eating the seeds. It was delightful. I'll do that again next year.

I have one swamp milkweed plant, and I would like to plant more milkweed. I do see monarchs at this plant in the summer.

My garden is sadly lacking in evergreens, which provide cover for the birds in the winter. I have a very small shady yard though, and it is difficult to imagine where I could put one.

Rose breasted grosbeak, May 2008

At one point in the 'How to attract birds' article they mention using splashes of colour to attract birds. Do large brightly coloured plastic ride on toys count?

We don't have any bird houses in our yard, that would be another interesting project.

I also need to think again about the bay window in my yard. We have had a number of birds collide with the glass. Last year a black and white warbler died from crashing into that window.

The article mentioned having a brush pile, which is something I hadn't thought of. It is an easy and inexpensive way to create more bird habitat.

Anyways, those are just a few thoughts from the top of my head. I think I'll have the kids help me create a brush pile right away. The other ideas will get incorporated into my garden plans for this summer.

Saturday, March 7, 2009

Sun rise, sun set

Banff, April 2008

Today's nature calendar task:

Record: Sun rises ____ am. Sun sets _____ pm. Length of day _____ hrs _____ min.

We recorded our sun rise, sun set info today. Sun rise: 6:44 am. Sun set: 6: 15 pm. Length of day: 11 hours 30 min.

I used our local weather website to get this information.

On February 19th we had recorded this same set of information for that day's nature calendar task. Sun rise: 7:10. Sun set: 5:53. Length of day: 10 hours 43 min.

It was fascinating to see that in only 16 days we had an extra 45 minutes of daylight! Daylight savings time is tomorrow. Our next date for recording sun rise, sun set data is on March 15th. It will be interesting to see how the Nuthatch will try to understand what happened. Today he was definitely trying to figure out how the day could be longer!

A long time ago we did a simple experiment that showed how the length of the day changes. It used an orange, a pencil, and a flashlight. I think we found it in the book "What makes day and night" from the Let's Read and Find out about Science series. I think I'll check it out from the library again.

Friday, March 6, 2009

Nature Calendar

I'm going to try something new on my blog. I found a wonderful nature calendar over at Holy Experience. We have been doing the little activities every day for the past few weeks and have been enjoying them immensely. They don't take very long to do, and we are learning alot. I'm going to try and do a series of short posts about the daily nature activities we have done from this calendar.

The nature calendar is from a book called "Natural Science Through the Seasons: 100 Teaching Units" by J.A. Partridge. It is an older book, published in 1946 and is out of print. I looked around on the internet and could not find a copy. My library system had only one copy stored away in a back room that I could look at but not take out of the library. I looked at it and it was a great book. Hopefully I'll stumble upon a copy one day. Ann at Holy Experience has taken photos of the calendar pages in her book and posted them on her site. I printed out a copy of March's nature calendar from her blog.

Anyways, today's task was: Watch for moths coming out of cocoons.

I have never found a moth cocoon. I thought this was an interesting task. I did find two websites about moth cocoons though, here and here.

We did not see any moths coming out of cocoons today, but we were out in the backyard making mudpies, filling our birdfeeders, and looking at some moss we have in a dish (it was a task from another day).