Robins in Our Nature Journals-Finally!

These are some feathers we found on our front lawn under a big tree. We are not sure what kind of bird feathers they are but they were very, very soft. We spent our Outdoor Hour listening to birds and trying to spot them. Our feeders have slowed down a bit in the last few weeks with the changing weather. The most predominant birds in our backyard feeders are Western scrub jays and House sparrows at this time of year.

My son was telling me about the flock of robins that were perched in the tree outside his window yesterday after our snowstorm. He thought there must have been dozens of them.

We have a resident robin that sits in the very top of our tree outside the front window and he sings and sings and sings very early in the morning...starting just about this time of year.

Here is what our robin sounds like in the morning:
Robin at Learn Bird Songs

We read through the information in the Handbook of Nature Study and found most of it was new to us. How could we be so uninformed about a bird we practically see very day?

"Moreover, a robin notebook, if well kept, is a treasure for any child; and the close observation necessary for this lesson trains the pupils to note in a comprehending way the habits of other birds. It is the very best preparation for bird study of the right sort."
Handbook of Nature Study, page 57

This statement in the introduction to robins made me stop and think about all of our bird studies. The point is well made that birding is more than just learning to identify birds. Careful study of any particular bird helps us to learn so much about *all* birds and it gives us skills we can use with all birds. We took special interest in the schedule of robin study in the lesson given for robins. This is another example of how to expand nature study to really get the most out of it. My boys were not particularly interested in studying robins so I think we will skip the in-depth study but we will apply the principles to a bird that does interest them.

This week some of us decided to use the coloring page from Cornell to complete in our nature journal and Mr. B (youngest son) decided to just free-hand draw a robin to include in his binder. I like to use the coloring page and then add my own interesting facts as well.

We will be moving on to the House finch later in the week and I will share that study when we are finished.