We Came, We Saw, We Counted . . .

Last weekend, Pamela and I counted birds for the Great Backyard Bird Count and entered our data online and in our nature notebooks. We even made the obligatory watercolor. Until we painted, I had never noticed the light turquoise rim around the eye of a mourning dove.

Somehow, nature notebooks and watercolors have merged into one and the same. Guilt over having done only one watercolor this year has bugged me--and we didn't even put it in the notebook. We have made regular entries whenever we studied a topic (like painted butterflies, ladybugs, and camellias), all in markers. When I didn't have a study planned, the notebook collected dust. When I posted the pictures on Facebook, one wise friend opined that "we all have our favorite medium for drawing and do our best work with it." I think we will try other media and see what Pamela likes best. I have a feeling markers will win the day because she likes vivid colors and fluidity.

Charlotte Mason saw these notebooks as "travelling companions and life records wherein the 'finds' of every season, bird or flower, fungus or moss, is sketched, and described somewhat in the manner of Gilbert White" (Page 223). While I gloss over peers mentioned in her books, another brilliant friend emphasized the need to know who exactly Gilbert White was! White, an eighteenth-century naturalist, gardener, and priest in Hampshire, England, "observed things closely in their natural state" rather than "dissect and examine in detail the animal or plant before them; dead, cut off, out of it’s natural environment, there, on their table or desk" (Tony Grant). White kept regular, dated records of his locale so that he understood the life cycles in his habitat. If you peek into his book, you see occasional pictures and a great deal of description based upon years of careful observations like the ones Pamela has been making (and her wisterbuds are from watercolor pencils).


Since White and children differ in developmental levels, Mason scaffolded the study of nature. The source of these notebooks was the nature walk, an artful blend of atmosphere, discipline, and life, "Every day's walk gives him something to enter: three squirrels in a larch tree, a jay flying across such a field, a caterpillar climbing up a nettle, a snail eating a cabbage leaf, a spider dropping suddenly to the ground, where he found ground ivy, how it was growing and what plants were growing with it, how bindweed or ivy manages to climb" (Page 55). As soon as children could draw, they kept a nature diary illustrated with dry brush drawings. Over time, they form relationships with things in nature and "know a plant by its gesture and habitat, its time and its way of flowering and fruiting; a bird by its flight and song and its times of coming and going; to know when, year after year, you may come upon the redstart and the pied fly-catcher, means a good deal of interested observation" (Page 236). As the writing skills develop, children "keep records and drawings in a nature notebook and make special studies of their own for the particular season with drawings and notes" (Page 219). In later grades, they focus on knowing what to expect in a particular habitat, know the parts of different things, keep lists of birds and plants, and supplement their personal knowledge with carefully chosen books. In upper levels, their work begins to fit into branches of learning typically seen in schools gleaned through field work and scholarly books, instead of textbooks.

Because of Pamela's aphasia, I'm not sure how incidentally I can teach scientific vocabulary. Mason avoided dousing the joy of nature walks with a flood of scientific blather with beginner nature notebookers. Teachers threw in a word here or there, but too much jargon would make it harder for children to store up common knowledge needed to understand formal instruction in later years. The ultimate aim is for them to "know and delight in natural objects as in the familiar faces of friends" (Page 237). Books and occasional object lessons and microscope work supplement outdoor study. To give Pamela a framework, we are going to document signs of spring and note the life cycle of the neighbor's wisteria right now.

One thing you may notice about Pamela's nature notebook is the imperfect writing mechanics, especially in this world of beautiful lapbooks. Now, I am not knocking lapbooks at all, just illustrating a distinction. From a Mason point of view, we aim for notebooks to represent where our students are in their understanding and we hope for it to be a product of their hands, minds, and hearts, grammar glitches and all. If I mined notebook entries for writing lessons, Pamela would figure that out, robbing her of the joy of writing. Mason wrote, "Certainly these notebooks do a good deal to bring science within the range of common thought and experience; we are anxious not to make science a utilitarian subject" (Page 223).

A nature notebook records where she is today. If we peek into where she was two years ago--when we were wrapping up speech therapy a la the Association Method, we can see the progress from stilted, repetitive language to something more free and original. Mason pointed out, "The children keep a dated record of what they see in their nature notebooks, which are left to their own management and are not corrected. These notebooks are a source of pride and joy, and are freely illustrated by drawings (brushwork) of twig, flower, insect, etc." (Page 236).

I also wavered back and forth between wanting to keep my own notebook and feeling guilty because Eve Anderson, a thirty-year veteran of teaching PNEU schools, discouraged teachers from making their own entries during a nature study lesson. I began to think of my class of one student who loves to draw and writes with ease, albeit with a few errors here and there. Pamela really doesn't need me to supervise each and every step of making entries. Why not keep my own notebook? I shared that decision with friends on Facebook and a homeschooling friend wrote that she does the same. It helps her to be in the role of a fellow learner, easing the way to share pencils and paints and discuss color choices and observations. So, I am going to try keeping my own notebook, side-by-side with Pamela.

My friend Jeannette Tulis faced a similar dilemma. She taught a co-op class with 17 first graders and never had success with dry brush watercolor for the fine motor skills of her crew were not developmentally ready. They spent most of their time indoors but did head out on particularly beautiful days. Even though she didn't perfectly line up with a Mason nature study program, she met the number one objective of a Mason science program, to inspire awe and wonder: "Where science does not teach a child to wonder and admire it has perhaps no educative value" (Page 224). Tulis wrote, "I was delighted by the spark I saw in many of my students’ eyes as we learned together of the intricacy, wisdom and wonder of God’s creation. And that, in the words of several of my students, was truly cool!"

P.S. If you want to understand why nature notebooks are so valuable in teaching children many things, including science, check out Carroll Smith's keynote presentation on nature study. Be prepared to be inspired and have fingers itching to head straight outdoors and observe and record!

Man Your Battle Stations!

Four more days until the bird count! Are you ready?


Photo credit to Cleve Dowell and article by Cathy Gilbert of the Manning Times (Page 3)

The Santee National Wildlife Refuge is proud to announce their participation in the 13th Annual Great Backyard Bird Count, Feb. 12-15. This annual bird count is organized by the National Audubon Society and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology as a way for people of all ages and levels of bird-watching experience to participate in observing birds in their backyard, off their balcony or at their local refuge!

Manning resident Tammy Glaser participated last year with her daughter, Pamela, who is autistic and homeschooled. "We do the Backyard Bird Count because we follow a form of homeschooling (Charlotte Mason) that involves nature study," Glaser explained. "Plus, birds are so fun to watch and sometimes you see some interesting things. And you learn a lot. If it's not freezing cold, maybe we will sit on the back porch rockers since Pamela has an idea of what to expect this year."

Each year, tens of thousands of people throughout the U.S. and Canada take part in the Great Backyard Bird Count. Each checklist will contribute valuable information for conservation, by submitting the data online. The information gathered through this bird count will help scientists understand how the distributions of birds are changing over time.

The Santee National Wildlife Refuge will host an early morning bird walk on Saturday, Feb. 13, starting at 7:30 a.m. as part of the Great Backyard Bird Count. Refuge staff hopes to observe wintering sandhill cranes as well as snow geese from the trail’s observation tower to add to the count tally. Ducks, geese and a variety of wintering songbirds may also be seen. Interested participants should meet at the visitor center.

"We are also encouraging visitors to the refuge to observe and keep track of all birds seen during the 4-day count period," said Susan Heisey, Park Ranger. "Individuals interested in participating can pick up a bird check list at the refuge’s visitor center or information kiosk at the Cuddo Unit and start counting. Not only is the count keeping track of different species seen but also numbers of each of those species."

"Once a person has completed their hike, drive, or bicycle ride around the refuge, they can return their checklist to the refuge visitor center, where staff will compile the sightings of all participants," Heisey said. Individuals must return their checklist to the visitor center no later than Feb. 15 for their count to be included. "If the visitor center is not open when you come by, the refuge will have a box on the front porch for folks to leave their checklists," she added. "Please make sure that participant names and contact information is included."

Santee National Wildlife Refuge was established in 1941 as a sanctuary for migratory birds. The refuge encompasses just over 12,400 acres of habitat along the banks of Lake Marion in four separate units. The refuge visitor center as well as the Santee Indian Mound and site of Fort Watson are located on the Bluff Unit, 8 miles south of Summerton on Hwy 15/301. Santee National Wildlife Refuge is one of 550 national wildlife refuges across the country that make up over 150 million acres of land and water for fish and wildlife conservation. The refuge system offers a variety of outdoor activities, including fishing, hunting, environmental education, wildlife observation and photography. Each year, about 40 million Americans discover the wonders of nature by visiting a wildlife refuge. There is at least one wildlife refuge in every state and one within an hour’s drive of most major cities.

For more information about the Great Backyard Bird Count and visitor opportunities at the Santee National Wildlife Refuge, contact Susan Heisey, Park Ranger, at 478-2217 or email susan_heisey@fws.gov.

Mark Your Calendars!

It's that time of year again . . . next weekend is the Great Backyard Bird Count! Rather than repeat what I have blogged before, here are some posts to give you some perspective and advice:

The Value of Nature Study
Scaffolding Kids in the Bird Count
Day One of GBBC 2009
Final Day of GBBC 2009

At first, you might find it hard to identify birds. This one completely mystified me last year, and I kept thinking it was an American goldfinch. Every day, I watched it sample camellia fruit from a neighbor's yard. I could always tell the bird was there by the way one cluster of leaves would wave wildly and then I would see a flash of gold, followed by another cluster dancing around. One day I caught him (the flashy color gives his gender away) taking a bath. I snapped a photograph and emailed an Audobon Society representative in our area. It turned out my "finch" was really a juvenile Baltimore oriole. The drab orange made him look finch like from a distance. This year, he is sporting bold orange colors, leaving no doubt of his identity!



Bird-watching feels like a treasure hunt sometimes. This morning, I walked outside and heard the sweetest music imaginable. Perched in the three pecan and two oak trees in our yard were hundreds, maybe thousands of robins, making me believe that Punxsutawney Phil got it wrong this year, ignoring the Facebook photos of my friends in the D.C. area attacked by Snowzilla.

Last year, the kids and I startled at a huge thud against the window of the television room and had a rare opportunity to photograph and record our first headbanger bird. Last year, we spotted a gorgeous painted bunting, even during a rare snowfall. Even if we don't meet any new friends this year, we will enjoy seeing our faithful ones.

You don't need much to get started. Birds need food and water. We have the bird bath stationed right next to the food supplies: suet in a suet cage, seeds in a feeder, and a bag of thistle. Some birds use both, but others feed on what's wild in the yard: robins and their worms, chipping sparrows and their pecans, orioles and their fruit.

We also have bird books and a notebook with clear pictures of birds we typically see in our yard. I usually take pictures first and then look things up because cropping and zooming in on specific features helps me nail an identification.

Really, other than the set up, it doesn't take much time. You only need to spend fifteen minutes, counting, and a few more of entering data. It is really cool to be part of a nation-wide scientific study! Join us!

GBBC Day Two

Pamela and I spent another half hour counting birds on Saturday but bagged it Sunday and Monday (I was emotionally spent due other things going on in life). I issued Pamela the certificate above for spending an hour of birdwatching. I thought you might be interested in seeing the sheets we used to scaffold her identifying birds:



Saturday's highlight for me was photographing the tufted titmouse. Titmice, like chickadees, usually snatch sunflower seeds from the feeder in a hit-and-run and fly to a hiding spot in the tree to open it and eat the nugget. I find them hard to shoot for that reason. These are not the greatest pictures, but they leave no doubt that we have at least one titmouse visiting the feeder. They are so cute with their black button eyes and fan tails.


As of Saturday, ours were the only two observations from our town. I just checked the results submitted as of today, and I am delighted to know many other bird watchers in my town posted what they saw, too!



Here is what we reported last Friday:

1 Mourning Dove
1 Carolina Wren
1 American Robin
5 Chipping Sparrows
2 Northern Cardinals
2 Common Grackles
2 House Finches
1 American Goldfinches15 Total

Here is what we reported last Saturday:

1 Carolina Chickadee
1 Tufted Titmouse
1 Carolina Wren
1 Northern Mockingbird
7 Chipping Sparrows
1 Northern Cardinal
3 House Finches15 Total

Here are two videos of us watching the birds real-time and reviewing pictures after the count:




Yesterday, I took a cool picture. During the count over the weekend, I noticed that my neighbor's camellias had visitors, but I did not get a good shot of them. I snapped one of an American goldfinch hanging out in these gorgeous pink flowers. God made blooming flowers and colorful, melodious birds to cheer our hearts even in the dead of winter.

And as I stood, and cast aside mine eye,
I was ware of the fairest medlar tree
That ever yet in all my life I seye,
As full of blossoms as it mighte be;
Therein a goldfinch leaping prettily
From bough to bough; and as him list he eat
Here and there of the buds and flowers sweet.

By Geoffrey Chaucer

Great Backyard Bird Count 2009 Day One

One of the benefits of bird watching is getting outdoors and breathing the fresh air. This post may seem odd to you because we are--gasp, INDOORS--studying pictures I took of birds during my count this morning and videos I recorded. You can breathe a sigh of relief because Pamela spends a good part of her day outdoors, whether or not she is identifying birds. Here she is playing in the sand at red beach.


To get in the spirit of the bird count and knock out more work on sharing perspectives, Pamela and I practiced identifying birds on Wednesday. I placed pictures of birds indoors and outdoors, and she helped me find them in the order I had written on my list. I hoped to see how Pamela directs me physically and verbally, and she was fabulous. I, on the other hand, need to improve on my "match plus one" technique (repeat what she says and add something simple to it). I scaffolded her too much with my "I can't see it" and will back off in the next lesson. What I found interesting is how well she compensates for her aphasia by coming up with phrases and words that get the point across, even if her choices are not perfectly clear (for example, she said bench instead of column). A couple of times, Pamela knew there was a better word and corrected herself almost immediately, changing man to woman, shed to window and chair to swing.


Last weekend, I outlined my plan for scaffolding birdwatching and I added two things to it. I decided to review pictures I took on the computer and to write future, present, and past experience stories a la the association method (fodder for a later post). The most exciting moment for me was taking a picture of the Carolina wren for the first time ever!


The beauty of being able to study pictures of the birds I recorded on the video is helping Pamela differentiate little brown blobs. I try to take as many pictures as possible--full zoom on busy birds practically guarantee blurry shots. The first step is telling the sparrows and the finches apart; the second is figuring out which sparrow and which finch. With the computer, I can zoom in on specific features until the identification is obvious. From top to bottom are a chipping sparrow, a female house finch, and a male house finch. By the by, a flock of chipping sparrows and Mr. and Mrs. House Finch dine at our feeder regularly.


Meet Our Fluffy Friends

Video of Pamela and I Studying Pictures


Video of Our Fluffy Friends


Video of Pamela and I Studying the Video


Handling Anxiety over a Possibly Scratched Disk


I just checked the 2009 statistics for South Carolina. As of 20:36, our household was the only list submitted for our neck of the woods . . .

Scaffolding Great Backyard Bird Count for You and Your Kids

Hear ye, hear ye, all ye RDI families! Believe it or not, bird watching can be a great activity for framing RDI objectives or just plain family fun! You do not have to be an expert in birds to get started. In fact, part of the joy of birdwatching is not knowing much at all and making discoveries for yourself! You do not have to live near a nature center to see our feathered friends (yes, in time, you will grow to think of them as friends). I live right in the middle of a rural town with two gas stations, a storage facility, two stores, a former dialysis center, a church with several buildings, and four houses on my busy block!

You do not need a web camera or special equipment. This battered, old, taped-up camera (with the zoom set to the highest level, without flash, pictures take through my sometimes clean kitchen window) has produced the bird pictures on my blog! Then, I crop, resize, or adjust the color as needed. When I was busy trying to catch the painted bunting in action a few weeks back, I put the video camera on the back porch and let it rip for thirty minutes!

Become a Good Guide
To scaffold your children in watching birds, you need to become a good guide and that means getting to know your birds. When I first started homeschooling in the dark ages (1995), I could recognize obvious birds in my yard, but not much more than robin, cardinal, blue jay, and crows. When we moved to a house in Colorado with bird feeders and bird boxes, I caught the bird-watching bug. I bought a bird book and began watching them from my kitchen window through some binoculars. Very gradually, I began to recognize them based on several factors. I keep on hand a local bird book and a national field guide for traveling.

The first thing you need to do is attract birds by supplying food and water in a place you can view from a window. We have a bird bath, a seed feeder, a suet feeder, and a nectar feeder for hummingbirds in Spring. Great daily lifestyle activities are filling the bath with clean water and making sure all feeders are full. You can either buy feeders (an outing with potential for framing objectives) or make your own. You can figure out what birds you may attract this time of year by plugging your town into the 2008 Great Backyard Bird Count results. You and your child can talk about what kind of birds you would like to feed and choose a feeder type, bird food, and feeder placement based upon that--all great venues for problem solving and dynamic thinking.

Then, the fun begins . . . watching and identifying birds. I started off by getting the know the boldest and most frequent visitors to our feeders. Between bird books and online guides, you have a wealth of information available. The first thing most people notice about birds is their appearance. Talking about how a bird looks is a great opportunity for making declarative comments and learning new vocabulary words. The other day, I identified a tufted titmouse for the first time. It came and went so fast I had no time to share it with Pamela, but I did take a blurry picture! That way we can slow down the action, zoom in on any details after we transfer it to the computer, and take our time in making comments, "the chest is creamy and fluffy," "the bird has a blue crown of feathers that look like a Mohawk," "its black eyes look like buttons," and "I see a little bit of rust colored feathers at the left and right edges of its chest." You can classify many birds based on appearance only! Some birds are tricky to identify (an example from earlier in the week was distinguishing between the Carolina wren which has a solid chest and the brown thrasher which has a speckled chest) and may require much more problem solving over several viewings to figure out.

Become a Dynamic Thinker
Bird watching requires dynamic thinking because many elements can help you identify birds. You can guide your child in exploring a host of characteristics of birds in your backyard:

Behavior - When birds are hard to distinguish (especially little brown blobs), what they do reveals much. For example, suppose you are trying to sort out a female house finch from a song sparrow. Song sparrows forage on the ground, while house finches forage in trees, on the ground, and feeders.

Size - By comparing sizes of birds feeding at the same type, you can estimate the size of the bird you are trying to identify.

Location - Some birds live in your area year round, while others migrate in your area during a certain seasons. You may only see other birds while they migrate. Not only that, some birds are not native to your area! Researching online guides tells me that house finches live here all year long, but purple finches are here only for the winter. I can rule out the Cassin's finch, gray-crowned rosy finch and black-rosy finch because they do not live in the Carolinas.

Food - While a way to reach a bird's heart is through its stomach, each bird species is very particular about seeds. If you see a little brown blob feeding on thistle seed (nyler seeds), your friend is most likely a female finch, not a sparrow, which prefers sunflower, corn, and millet seeds.

Movement - I knew where to point my camera because I spotted quick, flighty flitting in the trees. Birds tend to move in a snappy way different from the gentle sway of the wind blowing leaves in the trees. Another fun activity is to load pictures on the computer, zoom in carefully, and find birds hiding in the branches and leaves. Here are two shots I found of an American goldfinch wearing its winter colors.


Great Backyard Bird Count
Last year, Pamela made some entries in her nature notebook. This year, I would like her to learn to identify and count the birds with me. Here are my plans for scaffolding Pamela in making more careful observations for the Great Backyard Bird Count this year:

Photos of the Usual Suspects - I have a very good idea of what birds to expect this year, so I plan to make up and print some pages with pictures of all potential candidates and their names.

Checklist - I will tailor the checklist in Excel of the birds we expect with all the information GBBC requires.

Video - I plan to film the area where I usually watch birds and do my count from the kitchen window on my own. That way I can be very accurate and know how to guide Pamela when watching the video. Then, I will put the handicam disk in my computer where we can zoom in for identification and pause for counting. If we capture something cool on video, we can submit it to GBBC and blog it, of course!

Clock - I hope to teach Pamela to use clock directions to point out a bird in a tree. Imagine the tree's crown as the face of a clock: twelve o'clock would be the tip-most top of the tree, while six o'clock would be the lowest point in the crown. That means nine o'clock is the leftmost edge and three o'clock the right most.

Input - Pamela is very adept at the computer. She can help me input the data and make sure we didn't make any mistakes before we send it.

Other Worthy Projects for Higher Level Thinking
E-bird
Nest Watch
Celebrate Urban Birds
Feeder Watch
Bird Sleuth

Another Snowy Bird Day

One day with snow flurries is very rare for our part of the country. Two days in two weeks are downright shocking! Yesterday was another snowy bird day for us. It seems like the colder the weather, the more we see the birds. It is the only consolation for frigid weather that I can imagine in my chill-despising birdbrain! Pamela noticed the flurries, bundled outside, and enjoyed the super-light flakes. She put her hand on the frozen bird bath, too. The only way I could capture the snow on film was with the backdrop of our possibly one-hundred-year-old camellia bush (yes, that is a bush).



We saw the usual suspects but I was able to capture mourning dove on the frozen bird bath (before I melted the ice with hot water) along with a dashing chipping sparrow and two house finches at the feeder. Later, I got a nice shot of Mr. and Mrs. Dove on the ground. I will never say I like the cold! But, I am starting to appreciate it more!




Later, I shot some bold chipping sparrows at the bath and I love the one in flight in this shot:



The brown thrasher is a very shy bird. Every time I sneak to the kitchen door with a camera it flies off. I have tried to take pictures from inside the house with very little luck until today. These are the best pictures I could take, and, in them, you can see the curved beak, the fat speckled chest, and the long, thin tail.



Here are the usual suspects (a goldfinch with its head in the feeder and Mr. and Mrs. Cardinal):

My First Baltimore Oriole

I have always hated cold weather. Perhaps it is because I spent six years of my life in Newfoundland, Canada (the foggiest place in the world; the second foggiest place is between my ears--which I discovered at the Naval Academy), two years in North Chicago, four years in Pennsylvania, five years in Maryland, two years in Minnesota, three and a half years in Alaska, eighteen months in Washington state, one year in Connecticut, and six months in Massachusetts . . . but I digress!

I am developing a new appreciate for cold weather because, in the past two weeks, we saw four new birds at our house: painted bunting, Cooper's hawk that crashed into our window, American goldfinch, and, now, a Baltimore oriole.

Thursday morning I noticed the bird bath had frozen over again. I heated up some water, poured it into the bath, and set up the camera. In the clip below, a house finch dines at the feeder. The oriole showed up to take a very quick bath, but, before it flew off, a Carolina chickadee briefly attempted to grab a seed from the feeder but the finch foiled its efforts.

Snow! Dolls! Birds!

This is not dandruff . . .
Get ready to smile!
I got up early (6:15 AM) and worked on Steve's laptop in the kitchen. As soon as Steve turned off the house alarm, Pamela spent the next hour, running in and out of the house, checking the skies. This does not surprise me because she spends part of every morning paying attention to the weather. Of course, we know what REAL snow is and what we saw to day was not REAL snow! However, because light flurries are so rare for this part of Carolina, as Pamela well knows, we were very excited!




Today, we worked on helping Pamela adjust to the excitement of her dolls. We noticed that Pamela did not spend any time watching television all day yesterday because the dolls were on a box on a chair in the room wired for cable. I decided to move them randomly from one spot to another during the day. When I put them on the shelf with her videos, she actually touched them and moved them to the red chair. After David laid them on her bed, she carried them back to the red chair. Later in the evening, she took an extended peek (maybe, ten seconds) at the autograph.



Last Friday, I was thrilled to see a painted bunting for the first time and surprised when a Cooper's hawk slammed into our window. The cold must be driving birds of all sorts to our feeder. Today, I saw a male American goldfinch in addition to the usual suspects. My friend, the painted bunting, fed on millet (his favorite seed) for quite some time. He has been showing up regularly starting at 7:30 AM and feeding off and on during the day. I am going to try to leave the handicam on the porch early tomorrow morning to see if I can get better footage. However, I do not think I can top footage of the bunting feeding with snowflakes flurrying!