Nature Studies { Autumn Birds }

The question of the week was what are the birds doing to get ready for the colder days ahead? And the answer...well that depends on which birds we are talking about!

To dive a little deeper into the lives of our backyard birds we had to break them up into two categories first. OVERWINTERING and MIGRATING. Who was sticking around and who was heading out of town?

With my kids being as small as they are, we by no means exhausted this subject, but we did pick out a few of our favorites and put on our investigator hats. ROBINS, BLUE JAYS, WOODPECKERS, CHICKADEES, and our new addition to the backyard feeder, the NUTHATCH all made the list.

It's easy enough to pick a list of the most commonly sighted in your area, follow them around for a bit, pay a little more attention to what they are up to, and read up on their behavioral patterns this time of year. Makes for a fun "get to know you" date while you are out in the yard or running around on the trail!

So for this post I will break down our studies per bird and explain how we "investigated" their behaviors this time of year.

ROBINS

Growing up I was always of the belief that Robins, being the "first sign of spring", migrated and showed up again when the weather warmed up. I had no idea that more and more Robins are actually sticking around all winter and finding ways to adapt to the cold!

Turns out some Robins fly south while many actually form groups and roost in the Northern States. A lot of it has to do with available food sources, which in their case is berries and fruits. You don't see them much in the winter because if they are around they are most likely nestled in somewhere trying to stay warm!

In the beginning of the week we went out on a walk and my son (four years old) was in search of feathers. And feathers he found! We discovered that under each berry bush or tree were several feathers on the ground below. We had seen robins hopping about throughout our walk and the color seemed to match so we thought they may be from the robins.

Our growing feather collection led to some discussions on molting and how birds are starting to lose their old feathers around this time of year to make room for new feathers. They new feathers would be better at keeping them warm and helping them if they were making a long flight.

Then we began to question, "why were the feathers only under the berry trees?". Well, whether they are needing energy for their upcoming journey, aka migration, or staying put in a place that was soon to be much lower on food...they need more energy this time of year and are currently stocking up!

Loved seeing the investigation unravel for this one!

So my recommendation would be to head out with a particular bird in mind. One that is commonly seen in your area. Watch where they go and if they leave any clues behind. You might be surprised at what you can piece together.

WOODPECKERS

As I am prone to sharing our adventures, I am often handed leads, gifts, and suggestions that compliment our current natural studies and interests. This happened again this week when a friend offered up her dying cherry tree in the yard for our next exploration. She had noticed wood shaving all over the grass in front of the tree and when she looked up realized some descent sized holes right above the mess. Woodpeckers had nested their last year and it was pretty evident that they were back again.

So of course, we couldn't resist this invitation to see what these woodpeckers were up to. Before heading over, I did a little homework so that I could talk to the kids about these holes as we looked around. What I found out was that the woodpeckers (most likely Downy) were drilling. Which is when they carve out cavities to roost in. Sometimes used for nesting while other times just to stay warm. With winter ahead they were making preparations.

If you are interested in studying birds, ask around, you never know who may invite you over to some hidden gem right in their own back yard! You can also ask the naturalist at your local nature center for some leads as well. There are a lot of people willing to point you in the right direction if your walk in the woods leaves you wanting more!

CHICKADEES, BLUE JAYS, and NUTHATCHES

After all the fun we had been having with bird week, we wanted to see if we could entice a few more birds to our backyard. Possibly some visitors we hadn't seen before. After visiting the woodpecker roosts, we decided to head over to the nature center near by to visit the birds. While we were there, we also picked up some bird seed mix from the gift shop, to fill our empty feeder out back.

The mix we bought was supposed to appeal to a wide variety of birds and brought us a couple new visitors! We of course saw our regulars, the chickadees, blue jays, and sparrows all came by. But the Nuthatch was one we had never seen before.

As we sat and watched our backyard friends I told the kids to look for two types of behavior, CONSTANT FEEDING and CONSTANT FLIGHT. Birds that were preparing for migration would feed for a long time at the feeder and then leave. While birds that were planning on sticking around for the winter might make several short consecutive trips to and from the feeder. Why? Because they would be caching their seeds rather than eating them!

And sure enough, the chickadees, blue jays, and nuthatches made several trips back and forth right before our eyes! While the goldfinch that stopped by stayed for a while and then did not return. We even witnessed the nuthatches on the tree directly above us, pecking at the branch, perhaps hiding some seeds? Very exciting to end bird week with such direct observation!

With bird book and kids binoculars in tow, we head out to see what we can find. Sometimes we don't go much further than our backyard, but we are never disappointed. Birds are beautiful and they are everywhere. Which makes them the perfect study for little ones! They are also a topic that can be studied year round. We absolutely loved keeping up and helping out our backyard birds last winter.

And if you need some more inspiration and information on studying the birds that are common to your area, here is a wonderful article to get you started!

https://thehomeschoolscientist.com/study-backyard-birds/