Funny Farm

Monday, June 1, 2015

Adventures in Birdwatching with Kids in the Pacific Northwest

My son got a new pair of binoculars and a birdwatching book for his 6th birthday last week so our excitement for birdwatching has been renewed. The book is great for little kids, it is called The Beginners Guide to Birds and it organizes birds by color. Papa took us out on a birdwatching tour in Idaho and Quin flipped through his book and found a Red Winged Blackbird, a Swallow, a Great Blue Heron and many more. He took us to a "secret" place where California Gulls have taken over. There was literally thousands of them flying around, and luckily since it's spring there were tons of nests with eggs just sitting all over the ground and even fuzzy little baby birds walking around everywhere. The grown birds were a bit annoyed we were there, but they let us walk around and check everything out. We even stumbled upon a next with a bird hatching. We watched his little beak pecking his way out of the egg. What an incredible experience!

Since I have arrived to my home near the coast of Oregon, I have been watching birds here. Yesterday I was crouched down in my yard taking photos of my handmade silver stud earrings which just happens to be next to my bird feeder, I looked up and saw a pair of Evening Grosbeaks. I was able to snap a photo of a female, which is beautiful, but the male was an even brighter yellow color. They are, as you might have guessed, named after their large bill. There are a whole variety of Grosbeaks, one we also get here in the Pacific Northwest is called a Black Headed grosbeak which is a bright orange color and has a black head.

I hope we can continue birdwatching throughout the summer, we are lucky to live near the coast because we get such a wide variety of birds here. And if you are interested in bird watching, this website about Birds of North America is great, it helps you identify your bird by region, color, shape etc. Happy bird watching!