Bird Art

The past month we have been enjoying the many different birds that have come to visit our wetland.  They are all so beautiful and unique in their own ways.  Owen's favorite is the American Robin.  We read a book called Round Robin and Owen drew the picture below of the robin from the book.  Don't you just love kid art?

Not only have we read some fascinating books about birds, we have had the chance to observe some birds up close in our own backyard.  We watched a House Finch couple make a nest, lay eggs and hatch right in our very own backyard tree.  However, tragically the babies were eaten by a predator.  By the way the predator tore apart the tree we guess it was a local raccoon family.  We were very sad for the loss of these five baby birds.

Days later we were greeted at our very front door by a baby bird that fell out of his nest to early.  We found the nest in a front yard tree, however the nest was falling apart and when looking into the nest another baby fell out pathetically to the ground.  So, we had TWO baby birds staying IN our house till they learned how to fly.  At night they slept in our house with a blanket over the bin and during the day we put the bin on our back porch so the parents could find and care for them.  It was so fascinating to watch the mom and dad come to our back porch and teach the baby birds how to fly out of the bin we had created for them.  The parents modeled OVER and OVER for the babies how to fly out of the bin.  Repetition is important in parenting!  Owen wrote a story about the little birds in his nature journal.  It is a fun family memory to share!