Nature Club ~ Wintering Birds

For the next several weeks we'll be taking a look at wintering birds with our Nature Club friends and on our own. Today Holly & I hosted an activity in a neighboring community to do a nature walk and search for birds - wintering or migrating. The weather was pretty chilly and drizzly but we managed just fine and really enjoyed the fall season colors, seeds, mushrooms and fungi. It was rather beautiful out!

While we saw and heard very little from our feathered friends we still discussed how birds keep themselves warm enough during the wintering months. Holly learned that birds can grow extra feathers as part of a late fall molt to have a thicker protection, their legs and feet are covered with specialized scales that help keep the warmth in and they can fill up on extra fat preserves. As well, they fluff their feathers to create air pockets and tuck their bills, heads and feet. On sunny days they sun to warm their backs, fluffing their feathers to let the heat get to their skin. They can shiver to raise their metabolism and they roost to take advantage of group heat. As well, they enter tarpor where they reduce their metabolism when it is cooler requiring less food because they are burning fewer calories. Birds are amazing creatures!!!

We also talked about how we can help wintering birds by offering good habitats in our yards with bushes, trees, shrubs and brush piles. A food source that is consistent, water and salt crystals (let salt dissolve in water and evaporate to create salt crystals). We then talked about types of food -- seed, black oil sunflower seeds, thistle, fruits, peanuts, peanut butter, etc.. When we were all done the kids created a couple of small bird feeders to take home and add to their yard. They had a lot of fun with this activity and hopefully they will find them easy enough to create more later and keep their yards stocked well!

Holly is looking forward to more on birds this month and an upcoming field trip to the Nisqually Delta - it has been a while since we've been there, it's about time we visit once again!

Black Capped Chickadee

For the next month or so we are going to taking a closer look at birds in our area at home and in our Nature Club. Today we started with choosing one bird that visits our feeders daily - the Black Capped Chickadee. This is a favorite of mine for sure.

We spent about half an hour watching and observing the birds from our kitchen window where a popular feeder is located. There were several varieties visiting but a frequent visitor was the Black Capped Chickadee. After a while Holly did some nature journaling, jotting down observations and discussing them with me. I took some photos of the birds we watched as well.

Then we looked up the Black Capped Chickadee to read more - online and in our bird book. We read about this bird at Wikipedia . We found a great site that had a sound recording of the bird, we listened to several different calls and compared them to what we were hearing outside our window that morning. Holly believes she heard all the different calls we were comparing. I think she is right.

After her observation we then looked through the photos I had taken and chose one to look closer at and journal. I have decided to participate in a nature journal as well for a couple of reasons:
     1) Holly seems to slow down more and become more detailed when we do it together
     2) It is something for us to enjoy together and learn over. Hudson will join us soon.
     3) It is fun! I really enjoy it, observing and drawing - making notes.

We read up on their habitats which can be urban or open forest areas. Their diets which consist of insects, in particular caterpillars and black oil sunflower seeds... which is what is in our feeders right now. Their song is made up of a few different calls but they are most known for their namesake call of 'chick a dee, dee, dee, dee, dee'. They are permanent residents of the Pacific Northwest, even in the winter in which they can lower their body temperature to make it through cold snaps. On interesting thing we found is that they can cache their food in tree bark for up to 28 days - and in fact will know the quality of their food cache till about day 24. Who knew? I had no idea they cached food... which was a whole other lesson for Holly - caching.

This was a lot of fun! She is looking forward to learning a bit more detail on more birds throughout the rest of Fall.

Black Capped Chickadee at our feeder.

A different Black Capped Chickadee.

They come to take the seed from our Pampas Grass too! It is cool to watch!

Holly's beautiful & detailed Nature Journal drawing.

My nature journal entry.

Coloring the Black Capped Chickadee in her great bird coloring book.

Black Capped Chickadee color page.

This is a fantastic bird coloring book - nice drawings, examples and information!