OHC Spring Series #3: Spring Bird Study

This is one of my favorite bird studies of all time! I am very interested in learning to identify birds by their call since many times I do not actually see the bird but hear it up in the trees. My boys are really helpful in recalling bird calls and they are actually better at this skill than I am. We have made our list and I will share with you our results in another post.

Please Note: If you purchased the Spring Series ebook, please notice that I have added some links to this post that are not in the ebook. I discovered after publishing the book that some pages in the current edition of the Handbook of Nature Study are not included in the older version. The links I added will give you additional information about identifying a bird by its song and also how to identify a bird by its characteristics. I have highlighted the two links in red so you can easily find them within the challenge.

Outdoor Hour Challenge
Spring Series #3
Spring Bird Study

Inside Preparation Work:
As part of our spring nature study this week, we will prepare by learning about some familiar bird songs. Read about the “Songs of Birds” in the Handbook of Nature Study on pages 42 and 43.

Here is a link to a page that will help you learn about to listen to and then identify birds by their calls:
Songs and Calls

Brainstorm a list of birds you know that live in your area. Pick two or three to research on the All About Birds website. Look up each bird and listen to their bird songs. Challenge your children to imitate the bird song and to listen for it when they go outside.

Outdoor Hour Time:
Spend your 10-15 minutes of outdoor time this week looking and listening for birds. You might try going out several times during the week at different times of day to listen and observe.
This will be a week you can work on a few minutes of quiet time while you are in your backyard or local park. Remind your children that if they are quiet even for one minute they might hear a bird or other animal. One minute can see like a lifetime for young ones so use your good judgment on this activity.

Follow-Up Activity:
Take a few minutes to follow-up on any interest that came from your outdoor time even if your children were interested in something other than birds. Review the bird songs you learned and practiced during your preparation work. If you saw an unfamiliar bird, try to identify it using a field guide. Learn more about identifying birds here on this page: Bird Identification Skills.

If you do not have a field guide, you can try this online bird site to help identify birds: WhatBird? And this website for additional information as well: AllAboutBirds.

Don’t forget to look up any birds you identify in the Handbook of Nature Study and see how Anna Botsford Comstock suggests you learn more about that particular bird by reading the narrative and the accompanying lesson.

Allow time for a nature journal entry using the accompanying Spring Bird notebook page from the ebook, your own nature journal, or a generic notebook page from my sidebar of my blog.

You can print the pages from the coloring book, complete them, and then adhere them into your nature journal or you can use the black line drawings as a guide to sketching your bird directly onto your journal page.



If you are really interested in learning more about birds, you can work through my bird series of Outdoor Hour Challenges that are found on the Bird Page here on my blog. .

If you would like all the Spring Series Challenges in one place, I have an ebook gathered for you to purchase for your convenience. The ebook also contains art and music appreciation plans for the spring months as well as custom notebooking pages for each of the challenges. Please see this entry for more details:

Spring Nature Study with Art and Music Appreciation