Birds: Part 1

We've been studying birds for the past 2 weeks and I haven't posted much about them except for us birding. I'll try to post some of our resources soon, but thought I'd post a little about today.

We started the day by setting up an outdoor experiment. We set the picnic table with 2 bowls of bird seed: a cheaper version (on the left) and a more expensive version. We didn't have a lot of visitors today (I think we counted 7), but all but one of the birds we saw were at the cheaper food! But, they were all sparrows except one male cardinal (who was also at the cheaper food), and we're more interested in feeding some of the other species. Tomorrow, we're expecting lots of rain, so we'll continue our experiment the next day.

Indoors, we studied bird beaks or bills. We talked about how they come in different shapes and sizes. We used different "bills" to see which ones were best at eating each of 8 different kinds of "food." I found this lesson at this site.

The photo above was very funny. I actually scattered the smallest bird seed we had on a wash cloth. Alexandra was supposed to suck lightly to get the "bug" off of the "log." Well, I should have tried this first. She sucked down her "bug!" She thought it was hilarious and I told her she was now truly a bird.