Evidence of our unstructured, drop-everything-we’re-doing-because-we-see-birds-out-the-window nature study.
It isn’t well-planned out, and it is kind of chaotic, but the kids are having fun identifying birds. My friend, Dawn, has a better-planned, organized approach that looks quite do-able.
We have also been reading Anne Comstock’s Handbook of Nature Study that Dawn mentions. I wish I had got this book long ago. Comstock wrote it in 1918.
Though she suggests that the parent should read the “Teacher’s Story” and then deliver the bird information to the child in an easy, conversational manner (and this approach works well here), I elected to read the “Teacher’s Story” aloud. I was curious to see how Comstock’s 92-year-old turn-of-phrase would fall upon the children’s ears. Happily, the children find her writings as charming as I do.
Prairie Sings 
Such pretty birds! We have yet to do a bird study…I had planned on doing the Backyard Bird Count but couldn’t get to it that weekend at all! LOL
Do you use binoculars? We live in a suburban area an though there is a bird sanctuary only a few miles from here, there aren’t a lot of different birds we see in our yard. Since your lovely home is tucked into the woods, I bet you’ll be able to observe a wider variety! What fun! 🙂
Your kids are so blessed to have you as their mom! 🙂
We meant to do the Backyard Bird Count too (which I had never heard of, by the way, until I read about it on your blog). But the dates got away from us. Maybe next year . . . . . . . .
Oh. Forgot to answer your questions. No, no binoculars. Those are on a wishlist!
We recently put out a bird feeder and suddenly we are seeing a LOT more birds. I would like to experiment with different bird feeders too. The one we have has a mirror and I am pretty sure it was scaring the black-capped chickadees to see their reflection. A few have finally seemed to figure out that it is not threat.
The juncos and mourning doves are much bolder and come pretty close, but I’ve yet to see a bluejay on the deck, only a flash of blue deep in the woods. We might need to study how to entice them to come closer.