Outdoor Hour Challenge - Backyard Bird Focus #1

The winter was a very quiet time for us as far as nature study goes, and now we are excited to be able to get out and enjoy more moderate temperatures and bright sunshine. There's no telling how long it will last, so we aim to make the most of every opportunity.

It was with great excitement that I read that Barb, at Handbook of Nature Study, was starting a backyard bird focus for the Outdoor Hour Challenge. It was just the kick-start I needed to get back outside. Barb's challenges are so manageable - they require very little in preparation, equipment, and time, but they are effective ways of focusing attention. Anna Botsford Comstock's book, Handbook of Nature Study, is Barb's main text, and thus the name of her blog, and her challenges give me an incentive to pick up the huge volume and take a bite out of it - a small bite, directed by Barb's suggestions in preparation for the challenge.

I spent some time on Sunday evening reading the section on robins that Barb had pointed me to and highlighting some of the paragraphs that I wanted to read to my children. There were so many interesting things! Here are a couple of the parts I enjoyed:

The robin has many sweet songs and he may be heard in the earliest dawn and also in the evenings; if he wishes to cheer his mate he may burst into song at any time.

A robin can run or hop as pleases him best, and it is interesting to see one, while hunting earthworms, run a little distance, then stop to bend the head and listen and look; when he finally seizes the earthworm he braces himself on his strong legs and tugs manfully until he sometimes almost falls over backward as the worm lets go its hold.

The most noticeable thing about a very young robin is its wide, yellow-margined mouth, which it opens like a satchel every time the nest is jarred. This wide mouth cannot but suggest to anyone who sees it that it is meant to be stuffed, and the two parents work very hard to fill it.

Handbook of Nature Study, Anna Botsford Comstock, Cornell University Press, 1911, pages 58-59.

Can't you just picture those little mouths, bulging with food?

I read the section on robins to the children on Monday after lunch as we sat on the couch together. We looked at our field guide and examined the pictures in the HNS. Then we prepared for the outdoor portion, pulling on shoes, mitts, and jackets.

The objective of our outdoor time was to spend 15 or so minutes looking and listening for any indications of birds in the area. (We chose to walk to the nearby playground and not limit ourselves to our own little backyard.) We knew that at that time of day we might not see any birds, but we were going to try. We listened for bird calls, looked for signs of nesting, and watched for little bird footprints in the sand.

And our efforts were rewarded. On the way to the park we saw two robins, both male, perched in two neighbouring trees.

Then, while at the park, we heard crows and began to look for them. The children saw one, but I managed to see two!



After a little bit of time just moving around, looking and listening at the playground, we were getting chilly and decided that it was time to head home. I was thankful to have seen all that we had, and was ready to call it a successful Outdoor Hour Challenge.

And then My Girl spotted this little fellow.


He was hopping along the ground, probably trying to stay out of our way, since the little boys can be a bit noisy. Once the boys had progressed down the street a little way, My Girl and I were able to stand and watch him for a while. He moved to the middle of a small front yard and hopped a bit one way and another.

After watching him for several minutes we were ready to move on toward home when we noticed that he had begun to lean close to the ground. Suddenly he jabbed his head down and snapped it back up with a long pink worm in his bill!


He dropped it to the ground and began to nip at it with his bill. I don't say 'peck' because that brings to my mind a repeated back and forth motion, whereas this little robin was giving a single stab at the worm then pausing while the worm wriggled and resettled on the ground.

Finally the robin lifted the worm and gulped it down!




Now, doesn't he look like a fellow who's proud of his accomplishments? But modest: see how he faces away from us out of humility!

I'm so thankful that we stayed around long enough to see that sight! It was fun to watch his little head tip side to side, listening for whatever sound it is that worms make, his body parallel to the ground as he got close enough to hear. And then the "gulp, gulp, done" with which he dispatched the worm. Fascinating, but icky if you think about it too much!
We walked home and the little boys played outside while My Girl and I went in to do an entry in our nature journals.

My Girl, giving the final details to her illustration before cutting it out and pasting it into her journal. She traced the outline of the robin from the Cornell University bird colouring book and then added markings and colour.

My Girl's finished entry.

Little Man coloured and cut out the robin from the Cornell University colouring page to illustrate his journal later in the day, and Brown Eyed Boy was permitted to put his illustration in Little Man's journal, too, as he didn't have his own. (That matter has since been rectified and all of us - except for Dear Man - now have our own nature journals.)