Green Hour Challenge #7

I am excited to report that our nature study is finally starting to catch on around here.  In past weeks, when I have told the boys that we were going for our nature walk I would get a lot of aw’s and do we have to’s.  But today, when I said we were going to do our nature walk all I heard was o.k.!  We headed back to the canal today because the kids have been wanting to see the ducks again, and as birds are our area of focus, I thought it would be appropriate.  It is obviously nesting time because there were a lot fewer ducks today and they were much more timid than last time.  

                       

We walked for a ways to see if we could find any other birds, but although I tried to convince the boys that they needed to be “quiet like spies” so we could find the birds I think they were still too noisy for us to have any good close encounters with them.  

                        

We did see several birds in these bushes across the canal, but they were too tiny to get a good picture of.

                        

When we came home however, there was a bird in our bird feeder.  We were fascinated by the red coloring on his breast.

                        

I thought I knew what kind it was, but wasn’t certain.  I asked Harrison if he wanted to help me try to look it up and he said o.k. (He said it rather reluctantly, but at least he didn’t say no.)  It turned out that it wasn’t what I thought it was at all.  It took quite a long time to find it, and I was worried that Harrison was going to loose interest before we did, but we were both having fun seeing all of the different varieties of birds that we had never seen before, and didn’t even know existed where we live.  Finally, we found it, and both let out a little cheer.  It was a house finch! It was surprisingly rewarding to have gone on our search and been rewarded with knowledge that we hadn’t had before.   

We took Barb’s suggestion for this week and made up two cards to start our field guide.  One was for the Mallard Duck, and the other was for the House Finch.

                            

The kids are even more excited about identifying additional birds so that we can add more birds to our field guide.  I am just happy that they are getting excited about nature study!  Thanks again Barb!