Our study of birds

This spring, we decided to learn about birds.

The Girl painted her own birdhouse.

And we built a bird bath because we know those birds love to splash around and get a nice drink.

We paid close attention to ducks this year. I copied a few pages of Minnesota ducks from our Minnesota Birds book by Stan Tekiela, as well as a few others we might see and confuse with ducks (goose, loon, coot and swan). Then we referenced the pages frequently in order to start being able to distinguish between wood ducks, mallards, Northern Shovelers, and Common Goldeneye.

We found a pair of geese nesting in the St. Louis Park Costco parking lot!

We read:
- What Makes a Bird A Bird by May Garelick (Such a great book to introduce kids to what it is that sets birds apart)
- Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McClosky
- Have You Seen My Duckling by Nancy Tafuri
- The Ugly Duckling by Jerry Pinkey
- The Boy Who Drew Birds: A Story of John James Audubon by Jacqueline Davies
- Birds at Night by Roma Gans
- How Do Bats Fly In The Dark? by Melissa Stewart

We visited:
- Wood Lake Nature Center in Richfield
- Eastman Nature Center in Dayton
- Raptor Center in St. Paul
- Minnehaha Creek (we can walk there!)
- North Mississippi Regional Park in Minneapolis
- Springbrook Nature Center in Fridley

We watched:
- Birders: The Central Park Effect
- March of the Penguins
         Penguins are simply amazing. And those baby penguins are so cute!
- NATURE: Ducks: An Original DUCKumentary
        I learned so much from this! Wow! Ducks are cool!
- Birds Birds Birds!
- The Crimson Wing
         What an amazing life the flamingos lead in Tanzania
- The Life of Birds
- NATURE: Magic of the Snowy Owl
        We were amazed at the life of Snowy Owls in the Arctic
- NATURE: Jungle Eagle
         These are some mighty birds!