A Manual of Bird Study / A Description of Twenty-Five Local Birds with Study Options

by William H. Carr

Equipment: For equipment it is necessary for the instructor to have either a large colored picture or a real specimen of some bird as the Meadowlark which is rather distinctively marked.

Rules: First the instructor calls the attention of the children to the various parts of the bird as outlined upon the chart in this booklet. He then asks the children to stand and calls out such body parts as the crown, the nape, the throat, and the shoulder asking the children to put their hands quickly on the parts of their bodies that are named. After this brief review the instructor holds up a different bird and points to the different parts such as the yellow nape of the Bobolink, the reddish breast of the Grosbeak and asks the children to name quickly the parts as they are indicated, at the same time placing their hands upon these parts as before. The child who makes a mistake is made to keep his hand where it is, and, by process of elimination, with the use of several birds it is often possible to find one child who has alone been undefeated.

BIRDS’ NEST GAME

In order to appreciate what wonderful structures birds’ nests really are, it is sometimes helpful to try to build a nest.

Equipment: Let each child gather several handfuls of dried grass, short dead twigs, strips of inner bark, leaves and similar nesting material. These may be brought to the classroom or else the game may be played in the open.

Rules: The instructor should give a brief talk on different types of birds’ nests such as the Robins’ and Crows’. For this purpose, several real birds’ nests as examples would be most useful. The children should be allowed a given time to construct their nests. At the end of this period, it is just barely possible that there may be one nestlike structure in the group. This nest will of course be the winning one. This is one way in which the children may appreciate the true birds’ nests.

THE MIGRATIONS OF LOCAL BIRDS

Our local bird life may be divided roughly into two parts: the Permanent Residents and the Transients. As Mr. Ludlow Griscom has said “It is idle to look for Warblers in January or Ducks in July.” We must know which of our birds are with us all the year and which visit us for a short time. The following is a list that will help us to tell when to look for different birds at different seasons.

A. Permanent Residents.

In general, the birds that are present during the months of November, December, January and February are to be found hereabouts during the entire year. These are the Crow, several of the Owls, the Song Sparrow, the Partridge, etc. However, we also have winter visitors, such as the Kinglets, the Brown Creeper, the Snowbird and others that return to the north during the warm season of the year.