All About Birds

Since we have finished our formal Science text, I decided to throw in a small unit study for us to finish out the year.  So I found this one on Curr Click about Robins.  Since our back yard is filled with them I thought that would be an awesome way to really study them.

Before beginning the study I wanted to have a bird feeder around so I ordered this one from Amazon.

I thought it would be really neat to have one that was attached to our window, so we could get a closer look at the birds.  Then we went to the store and got some bird seed, on the package of seed I noticed that they didn't list robins as a bird that would eat it.  Later as we were doing a little bit of the study I found out why, because robins don't eat seeds!  Their digestive systems can't digest it.  Good thing we are studying them then huh?!!

We first had the feeder on our big dining room window, we thought it would be neat to be able too see them while we ate our meals.

After a while we hadn't attracted any birds (ok so it was only a half hour!), so we decided to move it to a window in the school room.  After a few hours we still hadn't seen any birds, but I kept hearing a noise outside the window like scratching claws.  I knew it was a squirrel trying to get to the feeder, but I thought there was no way he could get it.  The next day while doing some school work, this is what we see...

The silly squirrel had found something on the side of our house to climb up on and then he attached himself to the screen!  Well after a day of this we had to move the feeder back to the dining room window.  Eventually the birds did find our feeder.  The boys absolutely love watching them, and have learned to stand or sit very still so they don't get frightened and fly away too quickly.

Some of the birds that we have identified at our feeder are the chickadee and a blue jay.  There is still one that we can't quite figure out yet, but we are working on it.  We have this bird identification book
that we are using to help us.