Birds for the Young

In response to yesterday's post, Lena wrote:

It sounds like an interesting idea to enjoy with your little ones. I wonder if a 5 year old is too young for this? Maybe we can start in tiny ways. Thanks for the inspiration.

The answer to Lena's comment is, yes, there are birding activities that are appropriate for every age. Our son Ben was four years old when we started birding.

Here are some activities that children between four and ten years old will enjoy. These can become school lessons:

1. Help shop for bird feeder. Break this down into small increments of about 20 minutes each. For example, one day you can look at pictures of bird feeders online and talk about which styles you like. The next day, you can go to a store to buy a feeder, or at least look for one, and end with a snack and recess outdoors. If you want to compare prices and shop further, just do one store each day. The following stores are good candidates: Home Depot, Lowe's, Wal-mart, the local Farm Bureau.

Make sure to plan options for installing your feeder before you shop, so you can buy the hanging equipment, too.

2. Install the feeder. Gather your supplies ahead of time. Bundle everyone up and go outdoors. Let the kids run and play for about 15 minutes first. Then give them specific, simple jobs to do to help you put up the feeder. Finish off the work with a book or a cup of hot apple cider.

Place the feeder within 15 feet of the window through which you will watch the birds, so that the birds will not crash through your window. With just 15 feet of distance, they can't pick up enough speed in flight to kill themselves on the window or break the glass. You can see and identify your birds, but you won't be so close that you frighten them away. Feeders should be high off the ground and covered with a baffle to protect the birds from predators. You can place the feeder on a pole or a hanging bar. You can also hang it from a sturdy tree branch. It's especially beneficial to the birds to have the feeder within 20 feet of shrubs and trees that provide some cover for them. They will be able to sit in the cover until they are sure it's safe to be on the feeder.

3. Once the feeder is up, shop for the seed. Sunflower seed is the type that all birds eat. It's not every bird's favorite, but they all eat it, so this is the best choice for bringing the largest variety of birds to your yard. We put cayenne pepper in our feeders with the seed, because it limits how much seed the squirrels eat. With cayenne pepper, the squirrels don't stay away entirely, but they will not eat all the seed. By the way, it's important to keep seed in the feeder through the month of March.

4. Include books. Make a library trip to check out books on birds for the age of your child. Purchase a copy of a beginner's guide to birds. We used a small paperback Golden guide for our boys. I strongly suggest that each child two years and older have a guide book of some kind. The first time birds come to the window, each child will want a bird guide. This is true even for the child who isn't reading yet. You can help your child find the bird in the guidebook and then mark that page with a small post-it note.

5. Visit this website: All About Birds. By clicking on "Which 51?" on the homepage you can choose a bird, view its picture, read about it, listen to its songs, and watch a video of it. Prepare by identifying some of these common birds: blue jay, cardinal, mourning dove, sparrow, crow, robin, and chickadee. I suggest that young children will enjoy this best if you learn about one bird each day. You can also return to this site to review a bird you have seen at your feeder. This reinforces your familiarity with a species.

6. Spend 10-20 minutes watching the birds at your window after breakfast. This is the best time to see the birds. Supper time works well, too, about an hour before sundown, but I found that mornings worked best for the birds and for the kids, too.

7. Draw and color pictures of birds. Label the parts of the bird: beak, wing, feet, eye, breast, tail. I still have pictures of birds that my boys drew when they were four and five years old. A simple coloring book like these can be fun to use. From a single book, you can photocopy the picture of a bird, one for each child. A computer scanner can enable you to enlarge the picture if you wish. My sons found it easier to sketch a bird from a simple black-line drawing in a coloring book. After sketching the bird's outline, they could fill it in with color.

8. Check the library for educational videos on birds and birding. You can watch the video for a few minutes each day for a week. This works better than trying to watch the entire video at once.

9. Visit a zoo or pet store. Young children enjoy watching bird behavior and labeling the parts of real birds while the birds remain fairly stationary in their cages. One of the challenges of watching wild birds is that movements and noises send them away. It's hard for children to get close enough to really study a bird in the wild.

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There are several keys to making birding an enjoyable experience for young children:

1. Prepare beforehand. Gather your supplies. Be organized about it. Have a job for each child to do. This lets you focus your attention on the kids and what they are doing. If you are distracted by preparing, and your kids have to stand there and wait, they will become bored. This sets the family up for conflict.

2. Focus on action. Think primarily in terms of what your kids can do. This is how they learn best. Can they pick the feeder, pour the seed in, hold a hammer, or clean a baffle? They will not want to sit still and just listen to you instruct them.

3. Plan to keep sessions short: 10-20 minutes each. Unless a child strongly urges you to continue, make an ending while everyone is still having fun. Then do some more on the next day. Larger tasks can be broken up into smaller components. The point is not to be efficient and get it done, but to enjoy the experience together.

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Can you suggest another birding activity or idea? Do you have any questions?

A Story of Birds

If you have ever wondered whether you should try feeding the birds as a school project, November is a wonderful month to start. Let me encourage you to embark on this as a family adventure. It's a simple way for the whole family to enjoy nature together in the colder months. You may have one or two children who love it most, but everyone will benefit from watching the wildlife brought to your windows with a few simple seeds. Since our family has found so much joy in our fellowship with feathered friends, this week is devoted to them.

We'll begin with our family's story of birds, from the Apple Pie archives.

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When Joshua was in the fourth grade, we studied birds for a month. We learned how birds fly, how their feathers are designed, how they migrate, what they eat, their physical structure, and bird behavior. We bought birdseed and established a feeder in our backyard near a large window. Every morning for a month, we watched the feeder and identified our visitors with a tiny paperback Golden Guide Book of Birds. Cardinals, blue jays, finches, sparrows, juncos -- they were all there, waiting for us to discover them.

One day when we were buying seed, I noticed a pamphlet about Cornell University's Project Feederwatch, which connects the scientists studying bird populations with people who feed birds in their backyards. If we signed up for the program, Cornell would send us the forms for recording the species at our feeders. The scientists would use our information to track changes in migration, diseases, and population. Here was serious work and we could be part of it. We mailed our application that afternoon. For the next nine years, we watched our feeders in the fall, winter, and early spring.

Thus began our love affair with birds. Over the years, we collected bird guides, birding books, and birding equipment. Joshua studied the books until he knew the birds so well that he only needed a glance at a guide to confirm his identification. We became experts on bird behavior, habits, and schedules. We could recognize their songs. On cold mornings, we huddled by the windows, watching and counting and sipping coffee. It was our little place, our very own, where we met feathered friends from faraway places. We took birding walks, especially in the spring and fall, when we might catch a rare bird in migration.

Our hobby drew us to Cape May, New Jersey, a birding hot spot, the summer Josh was twelve. For a week, we sunned ourselves on the beach and ambled along trails near the ocean in hopes of a glimpse of a new species. Our bird list had grown long by then, and it was becoming clear that we would have to travel to see new ones.

For his eighteenth birthday present, Joshua planned a month-long trip across the country for birding. He research led him to plot a path across the upper Midwest to the Pacific Ocean: Rocky Mountain National Park, Snake River, Crater Lake, the Redwoods, the Oregon Coast, Columbia River Gorge, Yellowstone. His plans were specific to the smallest details. He kept lists of birds for each stop in our journey and exactly where they might be seen. He memorized the bird guides so that he could recognize a bird when he saw it.

There were many moments from that trip which I will never forget, but one is especially meaningful. In the Bear River Bird Refuge in Utah, Joshua and I slipped out in the early morning to see the birds. There were so many that we couldn't identify them all. We just did our best. As our car rolled slowly down the narrow lanes in the refuge, the birds rose in waves from fields and water. Thousands of them. At one point, we turned a corner and surprised a gathering of white cranes. As they rose gracefully from their resting places, they looked like clouds rising, loveliness in slow motion. I stopped and stared, unable to drive further. My mind could not quite take it in, the sheer numbers of them.

The great learning adventure we had undertaken together through the years had made this possible -- this beauty, this experience, this depth of sharing. It unfolded before me again, the map of our life , and I saw it as I had not seen it before.

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Is there anything you would like to know about starting your own birding adventures? Any bird experiences you would like to share?