Nature Study: Backyard Birds

We haven’t done an organized nature study in a while!  I like to follow Barb’s suggestions and plans on her website Handbook of Nature Study.  She posts great ideas for weekly Outdoor Hour studies.  She began a unit on birds a few weeks ago and I figured the boys and I could easily do this one this summer.

We began by discussing how we could attract birds to our yard.  We then filled up our birdfeeder and bird bath.

Ds4 filling the feeder and ds3 in the background filling the bird bath.

And of course getting ds4 wet lol.

Now we took a good look around the yard to see if we could spot any birds.  We could certainly hear plenty of them, and after a while we noticed this guy on our fence.

A quick consultation of our Backyard Birds book was required.  It’s a Carolina Wren!

This morning ds3 and I were up early enough to spot a common bird this time of year…the Mockingbird.  This guy is loud, bold and likes to peck on our cats’ ears.  Seriously, they swoop down and peck the cats like nobody’s business.

I zoomed as close as I could, if you click the pick it’ll be bigger.

Here are two Mockingbirds having a lover’s tiff. :)

So we are off to a good start with our bird nature study.  We have to keep our outdoor time to early morning and late evening to avoid heatstroke…it’s already in the 90’s with heat indexes in the 100’s.  I found a few printables for the boys to work on indoors and of course we can consult our Backyard Birds and A Field Guide To The Birds resources as well.  Be sure and check out Barb’s site, it’s a superb resource for your homeschool nature studies. :)