Little Man's cardinal, coloured and cut out from the Cornell University bird colouring book. Much care and time went into colour selection and labelling.
My Girl's cardinal. She is trying to include realistic details of shading in her illustrations.We once again used the Cornell University Ornithology colouring pages as the basis for our nature journal entries. As I see My Girl getting more comfortable with bird features and shapes I'll ask her to begin drawing her own birds rather than using the outlines in the colouring pages. For now, however, this is working very well, allowing her and Little Man to concentrate on colour details, distinctive features in the feathers and so on, while still having the bird's overall shape clearly before them.
As we walked to the dentist this morning, Little Man and Brown-Eyed Boy kept pointing out the birds they recognized: house sparrows, robins, and now grackles, too, although they aren't part of our backyard bird "collection" so far.
Little Man has been counting the robins he has seen this spring, and he's up to seven, I believe. I haven't been keeping count, but have been trying to find ways to identify individual birds among those who come to our yard and feeder. That is pretty hard to do. I'm not sure exactly what to focus on to see individual differences in the sparrows or robins. But I'm trying.
Today while they were playing outside, The Ones I Love called me out twice to see birds they were quietly watching. One was a chickadee hiding in a neighbour's shrub, the other was a fat little robin, hopping merrily along the ground which, thanks to the recent snow and thaw, is once again moist and yielding many yummy treats.
The fact that The Ones I Love are pausing to watch the birds while they are playing, riding bikes, digging, etc., brings me much joy. THIS is why we are doing Nature Study: so that it will become a natural part of their lives and so that their familiarity with the species around us will give them a greater love for creation and the Creator.
Today while they were playing outside, The Ones I Love called me out twice to see birds they were quietly watching. One was a chickadee hiding in a neighbour's shrub, the other was a fat little robin, hopping merrily along the ground which, thanks to the recent snow and thaw, is once again moist and yielding many yummy treats.
The fact that The Ones I Love are pausing to watch the birds while they are playing, riding bikes, digging, etc., brings me much joy. THIS is why we are doing Nature Study: so that it will become a natural part of their lives and so that their familiarity with the species around us will give them a greater love for creation and the Creator.
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