Enjoy Birdwatching With Youngsters

Watching the birds around our home or on walks through the neighborhood has fascinated me since I was a child.  My mom, as a parent who called her children’s attention to the birds around the yard of our farmhouse and the meadows where the cows grazed, encouraged my interest in watching these feathered friends.

Image: sxc.hu

I’ve tried to pass this interest along to my daughter and grandchildren. I’ve sketched and painted birds, researched them, written poems and stories about them, and watched them build nests around our yard.  For the past couple of years, my grandchildren have enjoyed watching a pair of nuthatches (those birds that go down the tree head first) build a nest in the birdhouse just beyond our deck.  There they’ve raised a family, fought off marauding red squirrels, and taught the babies to fly.

When our daughter was young, we had a pair of blue jays make a nest near our side door.  By putting up a blind, my husband could take pictures of the baby birds hatching, being fed, and eventually learning to fly.

The robins in spring, the chickadees in winter, the humming birds among the red flowers in the garden, the owls hooting in the night, and the pileated woodpecker pounding on the trees in the woods all add greatly to the birdwatching experiences we enjoy with our youngsters.

What birdwatching do you have with your children?