Our trip to the Galapagos Islands

We just returned yesterday from a 9 day trip to Quito, Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands. We were so blessed that my husband earned this trip-of-a-lifetime as a bonus from his employer! As the photos show, it was one amazing wildlife encounter after another.

I will do a separate slide show of Quito. These are the photos of Galapagos. To pause photos or to see captions, roll your mouse over the photos. Click the plus or minus to change the speed of the slide show.

DVD give-away on Counter-Cultural Mom Blog!

I have a contest going for the month of June over on the Counter-Cultural Mom Blog. You can read the rules and details there.

The contest is for a complete set of Vision Forum's Reclaiming the Culture DVDs. To view clips of these DVDs or to read a summary about each DVD's content, click on this link.

Learning about Birds

We were in the car last night and 3 year old Cal spotted a bird. He said, "Mommy, I just saw a blue grosbeak!" Now, I myself have never seen a blue grosbeak! So I asked him, "How do you know it as a Grosbeak? Maybe it was a blue jay!"

He replied, "It had a blue head and a blue body and some white on its tummy, but it wasn't a blue jay. Blue jays have a thingy on their head and this bird didn't have a thingy on its head!"

"Yes, honey, you are right, blue jays do have a crest on their head! Maybe it was a blue bird. Are you sure it wasn't a bluebird?"

Cal replied, "Bluebirds are light blue and the Grosbeak I saw was dark blue."

I don't know if he saw a Grosbeak or not. He has several stuffed Audubon birds, and one of them is a Grosbeak. So maybe he recognized one. But I tend to think not. But....he is definitely learning, at the tender age of three, to look at birds, to notice the coloring on their back, wings, head and breast, and to look for the shape of their head. I think he's doing great!

Our bird garden

We are planting a bird garden. This is a huge project for us, so it is a work in progress. We cleared a big area on one side of our house. It had been mostly scrubby weeds before, lots of briars and yucky stuff. I know the birds liked it as it was, and I didn't want to clear it in the first place. Someone is building a house next door, though, and they were doing a lot of clearing. My husband felt like we had to clean that area up, so that it wouldn't look like there was a jungle between us and them.

Once some of the brush was cleared, we started getting the garden laid out. We saved several stands of tall trees, including some dead ones. The woodpeckers love the dead trees, so we didn't take down any dead trees at all, other than one which was threatening to fall on the house.

We hired someone with a power auger to drill holes in our tough, rocky Georgia soil. They dug 40 holes, and we are in the process of digging about 20 more small ones. We have purchased lots of trees and shrubs which birds love, as well as transplanting several from my mom's property and our own.

So far, the boys and I have put in 5 Little Gym magnolia trees, two holly bushes, two crape myrtle, several pines (Leyland Cypress and Little Giants), some tiger lilies, hydrangeas, Nandina, and snowball bushes. We have some Rose of Sharon and 3 southern magnolias which we plan to put in the ground today.

We are working on weeding our existing butterfly garden. Once that is done, we plan to transplant several of our butterfly bushes to the outer edges of the bird garden, turning that area into two separate hummingbird gardens. The tiger liles are there already, and our kind neighbor built us a lovely feeding station which holds 3 bird feeders.

Right now we have out a screen feeder with black oil sunflower seeds, a covered feeder with a seed mix, and a peanut feeder. Soon we will put a safflower feeder and a humming bird feeder in that area, as well.

Each of the boys has built a birdhouse to attract a certain type of bird. Their Papa helped them do that to meet specific criteria needed by each species. We plan to put those in this area, too, as well as some additional feeders, one or two birdbaths, a bench, and an arbor for climbing vines.

My dad and I spent a couple of days putting in a drip irrigation system. This is an inexpensive set of lines that run from the hose to each plant, allowing each one to get a deep watering by turning on just one hose. This is important in our drought-ridden climate. We have heavy watering restrictions, and it isn't good conservation to waste tons of water doing each plant individually with a gushing hose. Installing the lines wasn't as hard as I feared it would be, and it is much cheaper than an in-ground system.

I have ordered two more hollies, and I still have several holes to fill. I plan to get some flowering dogwoods, which I love. They do well in this climate and the birds like them. Other than that, I am not sure what to fill the other holes with, so I am taking some time to pore over all my bird garden books, including the newest one, Attracting Birds to Southern Gardens.

I am a relatively new birder and a very novice gardener. Books like this one help me to think through the complicated process of choosing plants which will attract certain birds, be well situated to our climate, tolerate a largely "hands off" approach (which is what this garden will be once school starts up again), provide for both nesting and food needs, and other factors. With a limited amount of space and money for this project, we need every plant to "count".

Today was the first time we have started to see the fruits of our labors. We began this project about 3 weeks ago and the birds are starting to find the trees and feeding station. We had several cardinals, a tufted titmouse and a mockingbird on our feeding trays this morning. We also saw some chipping sparrows on the ground around it, an Eastern Phoebe in one of the trees, an American crow, and two squirrels climbing up one of the magnolias. As I am typing this, I can hear a Carolina wren, and we hear Eastern Towhees now, too. I trust that as we plant more trees and put out food and water stations we will begin to see and hear much more. I'm looking forward to "phase two" of this plan, when we will begin attracting hummingbirds, as well.

This has been a wonderful project to do with my boys. We ended our school year at the beginning of May. We set aside one month to do Phases 1 and 2 of this project. It would have been impossible if we had done all the heavy labor of clearing the brush and drilling the holes ourselves. But with that work done, we should have all the trees and shrubs (over 60 including the saplings and transplants from my mom's extensive garden and our own butterfly garden out back) in the ground within the month's time frame. Phase 1 was getting everything prepared and getting the bird garden plants in. Phase 2 will be transplanting everything needed for the hummingbird garden from our butterfly garden out back.

Phase 3 will probably be done when the weather cools off in the fall. We have plans to put in a gravel path, get the bench and arbor into the garden, lay down a pad of pavers for a bird bath station, and put in some railroad ties and pavers to make a path for the boys down a hill which is unsuitable for planting but needs some erosion control measures.

The best thing about this garden has been doing it with the boys. My husband's back is bad, so he hasn't helped at all. My boys are 11, 8, 6 and 3 and each one of them has had a significant hand in digging holes, filling them with dirt, pulling weeds, and choosing plants. We are enjoying this time together, bringing our dream to fruition. This is "conservation in action", a very valuable lesson for my boys and something we will always remember doing. We can't do much on any given day, but we chip away at accomplishing our goal, little by little.

I know 10 years from now, as we sit on our bench under the arbor, watching many species of birds enjoying this lovely garden, we will look back and remember our our "day of small things" with fondness.

Teaching Conservation

I am trying to give the boys a commitment to conservation. We were challenged recently by a fellow birder that it is not enough to just enjoy counting birds....you need to really love the birds, in and of themselves, not just for the sake of identifying them. It is clear the boys already have this love. They enjoy watching even birds which they are familiar with, rather than only seeking for the next new find as some birders do.

Nevertheless, part of enjoying and loving birds is a commitment to conservation, and I think it is valuable to impart that desire to them now, while they are young.

We are doing several things to promote an interest in conservation.

For one thing, we have started recycling. It is a pain as there is no curbside pickup here, and we have to deliver it all to containers in our community. It is worth it, though. The boys feel great about doing their part in this small way. We have all been stunned at how quickly it adds up. I had no idea that we were generating so much garbage. I shudder to think of all the years we were just throwing things away, adding to landfills. I am confident we will never stop recycling now, in spite of the hassle.

We have also been reading our publications from the American Bird Conservancy about what they are doing with the money they receive. The boys raised over $500 for the ABC in the Youth Birding Competition, and it is fun to read what that money is being used for.

Today we read about habitats being endangered as shade coffee plantations are razed to make room for more lucrative sun plantations. This hits home, as I am a big coffee drinker. As much as depends on me, I'd like to buy only fair trade, shade grown coffee. My husband is not as committed to this as I am, due to the additional expense. Nevertheless, I think it is important, and I am looking online for a reasonable distributor of shade grown coffee.

We also read about practices which are endangering breeding and migration habitats, a new court ruling to protect birds from crashing into high communication towers along the coast, and an article about all of the dangers migrating birds face on their twice yearly trek. Articles like these are important for the boys to hear, and increase their commitment to conservation and their compassion for our feathered friends.

The boys are participating in citizen science projects like Celebrate Urban Birds. This is a 15 minute project which can be done as many times as you like. They go outside and view birds for about 10 minutes, recording exactly what they see. Then they come in and post their findings online, including the size of location where they did their viewing, habitat info (was there pavement, trees, etc.), and a tally of what they saw. There is a checklist of the birds that are most indicative of how populations are doing, and they check off which ones they saw. At the bottom there is a blank space to add any other interesting sightings. After they enter this information, they can view a google map which shows where other participants live, and they can click on the map to find what species are being spotted in those areas.

Celebrate Urban birds will even send you a free kit to get you started, which includes two posters and some bird seed.

Finally, we are planting a bird garden. This is giving us lots of opportunity to talk about conservation and preservation of habitat while we work together on our project. It also gives the boys a vision for what can be done and a sense of ownership. Habitat preservation depends on all of us, and even a child can help. I trust that this small project will bear fruit for a lifetime, for the birds and for us.

Birdie play

K. and C.A. have been playing birds a lot lately. C.R. plays, too. Last night, C.A. had set up a "birdie baseball game" and K. had set up "birdie football". In birdie baseball, there were birds representing each position. Eagle, being the biggest, was the referee...California Condor, Painted Bunting and Crow all had "tryouts" to see who got to be the pitcher. The baseball field was recreated exactly, with birds on base, birds in the outfield, etc. I took a photo, maybe I can upload it here...hilarious!!

Another fun thing is "birdie language". The boys have made up a bird language, and they write messages in it. If they want to write their names using Birdie language, they spell them correctly, but each birdie letter replaces an English letter. An O is represented, for example, by a nest. K is represented by a birdhouse. There are different symbols, all taken from "birdie world" use to represent each normal letter. In the boys' minds, this is how birds would write if they were able to. I think it is very advanced!!

Add to this their almost daily "playing birds" time and they spend a lot of time with their audubon plush birds. When they "play birds" it usually involves making a nest out of blankets, and the 3 boys take on different parental or baby bird roles, incorporating the plush birds into the game, as well. I guess it is a bit like playing house....but all in bird world. Foraging for food, giving it to the babies, building the nest, etc. It is pretty hysterical to watch.

Ideas for Beginning Birders

I posted these ideas on the GABO list tonight. Several people wrote comments to me and sent them to my email inbox. I have posted them here, to keep them all in one place, for future reference.

We have two beginning birders in our family. I would love to share some of the things we have been doing to train these avid young birders.

We just got back last night from the Georgia Youth Birding Competition where they and their two teammates won their age group (Pre-Elementary) for # of species. I hope to post an update later today about which species they identified. Amazingly, this team of one Kindergartner, one first grader, and two second graders identified 82 species in a 24 hour period this weekend. You may remember hearing about our team Birds of a Feather last year, as they were the team that spotted the Yellow Headed Blackbird, a rare migrant, at E L Huie.

I say they are beginners because they are just 6 and 8 years old....though they and their two teammates (same ages) have been birding for about two years now. Here are some of the things we have done to train our young birders.

First of all, when they were just 4 and 6 years old, we had to spend a lot of time working on how to use binoculars. My friend and I hid Easter Eggs around the yard, and had the 4 boys each practice finding an egg in their binocs. They had to learn how to describe where the eggs were located to their teammate, the teammate had to then locate the egg and tell which color it was. During the competition, adults are not allowed to say "Look over there, see that bird?" so they had to learn how to spot birds on their own, find them in binocs, and describe the location to their friends.

This was a big challenge when they were so little, as they had to learn right from left, and how to communicate location to someone else, how to find something visually with their eyes, then how to find it in their binocs without losing it. It was much easier with eggs than birds, though, because eggs don't move. After some practice like this they could begin to spot birds and describe location to one another.

We also found that investing in some decent binoculars was key. Many people don't want to spend any money on young kids tools, but if the tools aren't good, they won't want to stick with it. Think how frustrating it is for you when you have poor binocs. It is even more important for them, as they need all the help they can get! We started them off with Leupold Yosemite 6 x 30 binocs. I wrote Kenn Kaufman personally to get his recommendation, as he works with lots of youth birders. These were great....sturdy, they can take some banging around, low price point (we got ours on Ebay for $65), yet good enough quality to really work for the kids....plus they are very lightweight and they are excellent for children because they can adjust for very close-set eyes.

For our 3 year old, we bought a plastic set of binoculars at a Wild Birds Unlimited store. For about $10 you can get a better set than most of the cheapies sold at Walmart. He is not doing a lot with his binocs, but wants to be like the big boys. Our 3 yo has been accompanying us on most of our birding expeditions for at least a year now. It is a normal part of his life, and he has learned how to be quiet and how to look through his binocs, too. Here is an article about choosing binoculars for kids.

We make lots of use of Identifliers, Les Beletsky's 250 Birds (with digital audio player of the calls), and Birding by Ear and More Birding by Ear. They listen to the Birding By Ear CDs many nights as they are falling asleep (they LOVE them!) We play games with the Identiflier, playing a call and seeing if they can recognize it. Much of their success with finding 82 birds was done Birding by Ear, by the way. They have memorized well over 100 calls.

The youngest teammember just turned 6 last week, and he successfully competed in the competition last year just days after his 5th birthday. We have found that the BEST thing for these little birders have been the Audubon plush birds. They are like plush stuffed animals that play the bird's call (calls recorded by Cornell Ornithology Lab). Between the two of them, my boys have probably 100 of these birds. They buy them with their own money, get them for birthdays and Christmas, earn them as rewards, etc.

They know all the markings and calls for every plush bird they own, and play with them as toys all the time. Even my 3 year old owns some (Pileated Woodpecker, Barn Swallow, Killdeer, and a few others) and he can name all of them and recognize most of the calls. We play games with the 6 and 8 yo boys where I hide 15 birds in a pillowcase, at random, and squeeze them (playing the calls) and they have to name the call....then the bird is revealed to see if they got it right. They have learned the calls and field marks of these birds just by playing, which is, in my opinion, the very best way for children to learn.

We also have purchased the North American Birds Notebooking Set.
This set enables the boys to color in a picture of the birds, and has lines where they can write its name, write some notes about it, and even blank maps where they can draw in the range map themselves, allowing them to create their own bird guide. They loved studying the range maps and drawing those in before they could even read or write....in the early days, the range maps and photos were the only part of their guides they could study on their own, so they pored over that information when I wasn't available to help them with all the words.

As for field guides, we started out with a Stokes beginners guide to Birds of the Eastern Region. This guide is color coded, with a red tab for red birds, a yellow tab for yellow birds, etc. This allowed the boys to see something at the feeder and quickly turn to the right COLOR section to look for it. We also used the free, online guide put out by Cornell, called All About Birds. That site is awesome, as you can both see the birds and hear their calls, learn about their habitat, see range maps, and much more. We still use it when we are at home.

After that, we got Kaufman guides for them, which were easier to use than the Sibley guide intially, as birds are grouped according to common characteristic rather than taxonomically. This was a big advantage for the children, to be able to look up the birds of prey section, or "pigeon like birds" section, etc. There is a pictorial table of contents, with color tabbed sections. The index is easier for a new reader, too, as there is a quick find one-page index in addition to the longer index, and in the quick-find index there is a color tab so they know what section to turn to visually.

This enables them to use the guide fairly easily on their own. They have Sibleys, too, and they have All the Birds, which is K's favorite guide....but when trying to ID a new bird, they always grab Kaufman first. The boys both won excellent new field guides for kids at the Youth Birding Competition. I know we are going to really enjoy this new Young Birders Guide.

At last year's competition their team Birds of a Feather won their age group, as well, having identified 52 species in the 24 hour time period. C.A. had just turned 5 that week, and K. was 7. They each received in invaluable prize: Thayer Birding Software for our state. They used that software ALL the time this year to prepare for the competition. I paid an additional fee to upgrade our software to all the birds of North America. We were able to use it last year in Montana, South Carolina and Illinois. This year we'll be studying birds of Florida before our trip there next month.

They have one other birding computer game which they love to play. It has taught my youngest boys a lot about the habitat of various birds, their field marks and their calls. I had to buy it on Ebay, as it is no longer being produced, but it is worth trying to find The Multimedia Bird Book computer game.

No amount of book learning can take the place of birding in the field, of course. We started with lots of seed and hummingbird feeders in our yard...then we began birding at parks. We go to West Point Lake, EL Huie, Newman Wetlands and other places around Georgia frequently. We have started taking our gear along whenever/wherever we go for vacation, and have been blessed to spot the Painted Bunting in Hilton Head, the Indigo Bunting in Illinois, more Yellow-headed Blackbirds in Montana, and lots of Sandhill Cranes in Florida.

We have been blessed by mentoring opportunities, as well. Last year Stephen Johnson from West Point helped us out a lot as we were getting started, and that was very valuable for the boys. My 8 yo son K. and I had the opportunity to spend a day birding with Paul Miliotis this year, and the knowledge he passed on in that one day will stick with us for a lifetime. Mr. Miliotis was in the New York Times, Time Magazine and other prestitious publications in the 1970s for being one of two Americans to spot the Ross' Gull in the continental U.S. If you aren't a birder, you don't know what that means....but this has become known as "the birding event of the century".

If any of you experienced birders have an opportunity to mentor young birders, even if it is just once or twice, it makes such a difference. I know less about birds than my 8 year old does, so there is only so much I can do to facilitate his training. He quickly surpassed me, and now most of what I can do is get him great tools and give him opportunities to use them. Having mentors who are willing to go out in the field with us from time to time, pointing out birds, teaching about habitat, etc. is invaluable.

The boys both won spotting scopes in the competition. Because we spent a day using scopes with Mr. Miliotis we have a good idea of how to use this valuable tool, how it works, which habitat it is good for, etc.. Without that mentoring day, the learning curve would have been much steeper. Another kind man was willing to share some new techniques with us, which will enable the boys to fashion a very visible and easy to use sight onto their scopes, using cable ties. This will also greatly reduce the learning curve, enabling the boys to use the scopes as easily as a pair of binoculars.

These are just a few of the many ways we have been helping our young birders grow in their knowledge of birding. The more they learn, the more they enjoy their birding experiences...the more they want to learn...it is a wonderful cycle. They have already far surpassed mommy in her knowledge of birds, but I love accompanying them and enjoying these experiences together. These youth birders have really passed their love of birding on to the whole family, parents and siblings alike, and it has become an enriching pass-time for the whole family.

I hope this information is helpful to some of you looking to develop a love of birding in your children or grandchildren!!