The Great Backyard Bird Count

I have never had a bird feeder before. I remember my father-in-law telling me that they draw rodents to your home. That is probably true. I live in an old farm house, so I certainly don't need any more rodents.

However, after watching the birds through the window at the dentist's office last month, I decided that I HAD to get one. It was so relaxing! So I stopped in Tractor Supply after my appointment and spent $45 on stuff to feed the birds.

Ava and I do our school work at the kitchen table. No matter the weather, I always have the curtain open to enjoy the country view out of my back patio doors. It was the perfect place to hang my feeder.

Our rotten little cat, Biscuit, also thinks it is a great place to watch stalk the birds. I worried about this initially, but have realized that the birds are aware of her presence and keep an eye out for her. Besides, any attempt to pounce them would result in Biscuit taking a flying leap off the back porch and falling about 15 feet below. Which would serve her right!

At least Biscuit takes care of the rodents!

As the birds discovered my new feeder, I was able to recognize most of them. One little black bird with a white belly was a new one to me and after a little searching online I found out that he is a Junco. I also came across the Great Backyard Bird Count project on the Audubon website and it is preparing to start at 7:00am EST on February 15, 2013. It is held annually.

The information they collect through a multitude of participants will be studied at Cornell University to put together a snap-shot of the health of bird species populations in the U.S. and elsewhere.

If you want to participate, the instructions can be found here. You'll need to set up a free account with them. It only takes 15 minutes of observation (or longer if you wish). Count and ID all the birds you see at your location during that time period and submit your list online at www.BirdCount.org. The event last 4 days, February 15 through February 18. They also have a photo contest with prizes.

Ava and I are going to use this opportunity as a fun science project. We've already identified all the birds we've been seeing daily. The same little birds come by to visit us each day, but lately I have noticed a few more have found us.

Ava's Nana recently brought her a copy of The Little Big Book of Birds by Natasha Tabori Fried which is beautifully illustrated and contains several short stories and poems about birds as well as interesting tidbits of information and history. Ava's favorite part was a list of bird calls represented as sayings. For example, robins say "cheer-up, cheer-up, cheerily". Using this method, we have been able to recognize several of our little feathered friends as they call back and forth to each other. We will be using this book for part of our studies, especially the poems.

(Image source and purchase info.)



I am a big fan of the tiny chickadees. I found and purchased two children's books for us to read: Chickadee Winter by Dawn L. Watkins and Emily the Chickadee, a true story, by Carol Zelaya.

(Image source and purchase info.)

(Image source and purchase info.)

Speaking of chickadees, my blogging friend Joan, over at My Mountain Garden Gleanings had a lovely post on chickadees last month with many beautiful photos of them eating straight from her hand. Ava is really excited about that possibility and wants me to find out how to train them to do that.

We also have on order Fifty Favorite Birds Coloring Book and Audubon's Birds of America Coloring Book, both from Dover Publications. We love their coloring books...all very educational and affordable.

(Image source and purchase info.)

(Image source and purchase info.)

We're also going to do a little art project making paper birds to paste onto a hand-drawn poster of a tree, make sketches of our birds in our observation notebook and learn about charting data after we have recorded our birds for the GBBC.

And just for fun, we are going to make bird's nest treats. I made these once for our Creation Club kids and they were a big hit.  This recipe is from the Creation Club Idea Book by Constance H. Crossman. I've had this book for a very long time, long before I even had children of my own. It is chock full of ideas for games, activities, crafts and projects for exploring science, topic by topic.

(Image source and purchase info.)

Edible Bird Nests

(modified by me)

• 3 cups dry cereal
• 1 cup shredded coconut
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup light corn syrup
• 3/4 cup peanut butter
• 1 tsp vanilla
• Jelly beans or bird egg candies

Combine the cereal and coconut in a large bowl. In a sauce pan, bring to a boil the brown sugar and light corn syrup. Boil for one minute. Remove from heat and add the peanut butter and vanilla. Mix thoroughly and pour over the cereal mixture, tossing to combine. Allow to cool enough to handle, then shape into little bird nests. Fill each nest with the candy "eggs".

I guess you could call this a Unit Study. I am not exactly sure it fits that definition, being that I am new to homeschooling! ;)

There is still plenty of time to join the Great Backyard Bird Count. Everyone from beginners to serious bird watchers is invited to take part. Leave me a comment and let me know if you decide to participate. I think we will do it every year.


(FYI -- This is not a paid advertisement. All links and books cited are resources I found useful for my own purposes.)

Merry and Bright

Recycled cardboard egg cartons transformed into glowing, golden Christmas lilies.

 

My 5-year-old daughter and I have been on a mission to fill the entire month of December with daily projects to celebrate the Season; either a craft, or a recipe, or an outting.  Today's project came out so well that I had to share it.

After losing all of my chickens to my neighbor's dog, I have a stockpile of egg cartons that I have no other use for.  The tall centers of the cardboard ones looked like angel trumpets to me, so this is how we went about transforming them into festive flowers...

You will need:

• Cardboard egg cartons
• Heavy-duty, sharp scissors
• Paint of your choice--I used some metallic gel paints I had on hand
• Paintbrushes, of course
• A mini strand of Christmas lights

The first few I made took me awhile to figure out the best way to cut them out and really I found that carefully tearing them out most of the way was much quicker and easier.  The part you are keeping is the center supports, not the egg holes.  A one-dozen carton will give you five flowers, an 18-count carton will give you ten flowers.  Tear as shown in the photo below, being careful not to tear into your "petals".

And a little bit of cutting...I tried to keep it all in one piece to keep the mess to a minimum.

This is what you're left with.

Now make a little cut into each of the four corners about half an inch deep.

There's your petals.  Take your scissors and carefully cut them into a tapered shape.  (I forgot to take a photo for that part.)

Go wild painting them.  It becomes a very relaxing project once you get to this point and this is where the kiddos can begin to help.  I am boring and painted mine all solid colors.  My daughter got to mixing hers after awhile, but since they were all metallics it actually made for a very nice effect.  It might be neat to try doing some of them dry-brushed for a more rustic look, or maybe dip the tips of the petals in glue and sprinkle with glitter.  That would really catch the light and sparkle.

Here is the slightly tricky part... When they are mostly dry--dry to the touch--I found this to be the best time to curl the petals.  If you curl them before painting, they tend to uncurl.  If you wait to curl them after they are completely dry, the cardboard will crack.  If you can hover around and not forget about them, try to curl them with a pen/pencil as soon as you can touch them without rubbing off the paint and they will make a very smooth curl and stay that way once they reach the hard/dry stage.

There are already little holes at the bottom, so just gently push them onto the light bulbs.  This is also a bit easier if they are still a little damp.  The light makes the "pistil" of the flower and the cord becomes a vine!  I think these will look really nice woven into a strand of pine garland.  They came out so elegant that I plan to use them year-round.

Yes, that's a pumpkin left over from Thanksgiving in the background of my Christmas decorations... It's a Galeux d'Eysines and it's so pretty I can't bring myself to eat it yet.  Ideally though, I need to try to decorate for one holiday at a time...  Ha.

 

 

To my subscribers, if you're still out there...I apologize for the rare and sporadic posts.  With the new baby and homeschooling on top of that, plus the fact that I hope to get my housework caught up one of these years, I've had to neglect my poor blog.  Just know that I do miss you terribly and I often think back fondly on my blogging days.  I just hope Blogger will leave my content and settings here for me so I can pick up blogging again when my children reach, oh...say, 14.  (I don't know how the Pioneer Woman does it!)  Until then, I will try to pop in from time to time.  I hope you enjoy this simple project.  Take care!  :)

Another Season

Wednesday morning's hazy sunrise.

One year without internet access has gone by quickly.  And I survived it!  Having my hands very full with other things helped to pass the time. 

Our second daughter arrived on March 8th.  She was born with a congenital heart defect called critical pulmonary valve stenosis.  Basically, there wasn't a hole where there should have been.  We spent the first eighteen days of her life in the CTICU at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, OH.  My daughter Ava, now five, thought it was quite a vacation staying at the Ronald McDonald House.  She is a big fan of ol' Ronald.  We even saw him in the Fourth of July Parade.

Savannah Joy is 5 months old now and doing fine.  You'd never believe the difference between how blue she was as a newborn and the big, healthy baby she has become now.  We spent our first month home tied to an oxygen concentrator and a pulse-ox monitor.  Now she squeals and "sings" with some very powerful little lungs.

I had originally coerced my husband to give up the internet, X-box Live and Netflix in an effort to tighten our belts and make a deliberate drive to get out of debt.  We made the last couple of payments on our car and managed to pay off two credit cards.  Although we hit the catastrophic cap on our insurance for this year, paying off those debts has freed up our monthly budget to pay comfortably on a few medical bills.  And we have an adorable, cherub-cheeked, baby girl to show for it.  :)

Ava and I just started our first week of homeschool "tendergarden" and we had a blast.  She is really enjoying the extra attention and togetherness and has applied herself wholeheartedly to everything I have asked her to do.

Today we began a science unit study on insects. After reading and discussing our lesson, we played a game of Cootie and discussed the different parts of insect anatomy and their functions. 

 

We capped off the afternoon with a scavenger hunt and took many pictures of insects we found in our own backyard. We'll come back to our pictures on Monday to attempt to identify them all and Ava will make drawings of them in her observation sketch book.

 

Here are a few of our finds:

This busy mason bee carried a thick load of pollen on his hind legs.

 

 

We were distracted from our hunt for an ant by this cute little roan filly that belongs to our new neighbors.  She came over to say 'hi'.

Of course we saw plenty of honey bees.  My solitary hive is still going strong, although I've not worked them once this year.  If they are still there next spring and I can fit back into my beesuit, I will take up earnest beekeeping again.  Right now I am merely a "bee-have'r", but I'm ok with that.  They are getting along fine without my intervention and I have to admit there is only so much I can keep up with right now, in this season of life.

 

Wasps...not my favorite!

Here we have one of those weird moths that look like a hummingbird.

 

And the Pièce de résistance...

A very large moth, the most beautiful I've ever seen.  What a lovely shade of pink delineated on its wings!  Ava was impressed with the large "eyes" on the moth's hind wings, used for defense.  It was like God gave us a special ending for our first week of homeschooling. 

 

Interesting Facts and Tidbits about the Honey Bee

Today my husband and I are doing a lesson on honey bees for our kids at church.  We have a basic lesson and lots of pictures to show them and then we're going to show them our beekeeping equipment, serve them some peanut butter (and honey) popcorn for a snack, have them color a huge honey bee mural and teach them lots of things they probably never knew about this amazing little creature in hopes that they will have a newfound respect for the humble little honey bee.

I had planned to do a honey tasting, but haven't been able to take any honey off of my bees this year because of slow build-up after losing my queen early.  The merger I did with the small swarm is doing great though and I'm going to start feeding them soon for winter and just hope to have a better year in 2012.

I've put together a collection of fun facts about honey bees from various sources that I think you all might enjoy as well.  (I still have internet for a couple more days and I'm glad I get to post this one for you!)

Honey Bee Fun Facts

Honeybees are not native to the USA. They are European in origin, and were brought to North America by the early settlers.  Solitary, native, wild bees did all the pollinating prior to that.

Honeybees are responsible for pollinating approximately 80% of all fruit, vegetable and seed crops in the U.S., especially big commercial crops.

Einstein postulated “"If the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live.”

Bees collect 66 lbs of pollen per year, per hive. Pollen is the male germ cells produced by all flowering plants for fertilization and plant embryo formation. The Honeybee uses pollen as a food. Pollen is one of the richest and purest natural foods, consisting of up to 35% protein, 10% sugars, as well as carbohydrates, enzymes, vitamins and minerals.

Pollen comes in different colors and a beekeeper can guess which flowers the bees have been visiting based on the colors of pollen packed in the cells.

A colony of bees consists of 20,000-80,000 honeybees and one queen. Worker honey bees are female, live for about 6 weeks and do all the work.

Worker bees will live for 4 to 9 months during the winter when they have no foraging to do.  They literally work themselves to death in the summer.

Honeybees never sleep!

The average worker bee produces about 1/12th teaspoon of honey in her lifetime.

A honey bee visits 50 to 100 flowers during a collection trip.

To make one pound of honey, the bees in the colony must visit 2 million flowers, fly over 55,000 miles and will be the lifetime work of approximately 300 worker bees.

Male bees, called drones, are mostly useless and are kicked out of the hive in the fall and left to die so that the colony won’t have to feed them through the winter.

Honeybees will usually travel approximately 3 miles from their hive, but can go as far as 6 miles.

The bee's brain is oval in shape and only about the size of a sesame seed, yet it has remarkable capacity to learn and remember things and is able to make complex calculations on distance travelled and foraging efficiency.

In its flight, a honey bee uses the sun's compass position, gravitational field direction, and the UV polarization pattern to determine its direction. Along the way, a honey bee also memorizes any geographical landmarks.

Worker bees will scout for good nectar sources and when they’ve found some, they come back to the hive and communicate its location to the others using one of two complex dances, the waggle dance or the round dance, depending on how close by it is.  They also give the others a taste of the nectar so they will know which flower they are looking for.

Honey bees will usually work only one type of flower at a time until it runs out, then they move on to another.  Because of this, beekeepers can take honey off of the hive after that particular “honey flow” has ended and can isolate very different tasting varieties of honey.

The color and taste of honey will depend on the flower it was collected from.  It can be very light and floral or very dark and strong flavored or anything in between.

Honeybees are the only insect that produces food for humans.

Out of 20,000 species of bees, only 4 make honey.

Honey is the ONLY food that includes all the substances necessary to sustain life, including water.

Honey never spoils.  It has been found in Egyptian tombs and dated to be around 2000-3000 years old and it was STILL edible.

Honey is used by the bees for food all year round. The bees make honey from the nectar they collect from flowering trees and plants. Honey is an easily digestible, pure food. Honey is hygroscopic (attracts moisture, like salt does) and has antibacterial qualities. Honey is a good salve to apply to burns. Eating raw, local honey can fend off allergies.

A typical beehive can make up to 400 pounds of honey per year.  Beekeepers only take off the excess and must leave each hive with at least 60 to 70 pounds of honey to make it through winter. 

Honey bees survive winter by clustering into a tight group for warmth and eat off of the honey they have stored from all their work in spring and summer.

Each honey bee colony has a unique scent for members’ identification.   That’s why you can place many hives in a row next to each other.  The worker bees know which hive is theirs based on the scent and also their ability to memorize location.

Honey bees are true patriots.  Worker bees on guard duty will defend their hive to the death. 

The honey bee is the only bee that dies after using its stinger.  The tip of the stinger is barbed like a fishing hook and is torn from the bee’s body as it tries to fly away.

Contrary to popular misconception, honeybees are not aggressive by nature, and will not sting unless protecting their hive from an intruder or if they are unduly provoked (or stepped on!)

Unless you are one of a small percentage of people who are highly allergic to bees, it is estimated that about 1100 honey bee stings are required to be fatal.

Bee venom therapy—the practice of deliberately applying a sting to a person’s skin -- is widely practiced overseas and by some people in the US to address health problems such as arthritis, neuralgia, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and even MS.

There have been occasions in history where honey bees were used as a weapon of warfare.  Some have thrown hives at their enemies like missiles or left them as traps.  Others have set out poison honey as bait, utilizing an invading army’s tendency to loot and pillage.  The advancing troops would eat the honey and become very sick and delirious and therefore easy to defeat!

*****

Oh, there is so much more I could add to this list and many more amazing things I'm sure mankind will continue to learn about the honey bee.  I didn't include here much about the intricate order of business within the hive.  My husband had already done a basic lesson and my job was to hunt up "fun facts" and I think I got a little carried away.  Ha.

Is it not in the heart of every beekeeper to want to encourage everyone to have an appreciation and admiration for our wonderful bees?  I think the honey bee is an awesome testimony to the creative hand of God!

This post is linked to the Homestead Barn Hop #23.