Our Fine Feathered Friends

What are some of the first things you do at your house when spring finally arrives? For most of us, we switch from boots to shoes, winter coats to spring jackets, and wool hats to ball caps.  We put away our shovels, get out our bikes, and best of all, we open our windows! What a gift to feel the fresh spring air as we snuggle into bed at night and then wake up in the morning to a symphony of bird calls. Today, we spent time learning more about our fantastic feathered friends and celebrating how much colour and sound they add to our lives!

One of the questions we explored was “Which birds migrate back to southwestern Ontario first and which ones arrive later?” Take a look at the bird cards we sorted and see if you can pick:

1. the group of birds that stayed here all winter.

2. the group of birds that arrived back first (March).

3. the group of birds that are arriving back now (April).

4. and the group of birds who should arrive in May.

And now for the skill-testing question - challenge yourself by seeing how many of these birds you can name! Let’s share our results next Friday.

In library, Grey Squirrel also had birds on her mind. In what ways was this both a sad and a happy story?

We also worked on our birdwatching skills in order to find out how to identify them by their calls and their behaviour. 

How can a monocular help you be a better birdwatcher?

Looking at the wall in the hall without a monocular.

Looking at the same wall through a monocular.

If you are interested in sharpening up your bird identification skills, consider checking out the free Merlin Bird ID app. We used the "Explore" feature today which allowed us to go outside, press record, and it showed us all of the birds around the hall that were chattering or singing.

Can you believe that we had the chance to listen to a symphony of 14 different types of birds?

Here are some of the other discoveries we made today. Which one were you the most excited about?

We are sending out well-wishes to our dear Tamarack. She broke her wrist over the weekend and will return as soon as it’s feeling better. We want to give a big ‘THANK YOU!’ to Raccoon who will be filling in for Tamarack. Hope you enjoyed all of the incredible pictures he took for our blog today!