Doodle outdoor cam: Fairy House

Doodle's Fairy House. Photo by Doodle.

A couple of weeks ago Doodle checked out Kristen's Fairy House from the library on a friend's recommendation. It's a video about Tracy Kane, the author of the Fairy House book series, and her niece going on nature outings and making fairy houses. Doodle seemed intrigued with the idea of making a fairy house. Later that week she and J built a fairy house in our yard.

Last weekend we took a family outing to the nearby State Forest just to get outside. We brought along Doodle's newly-finished nature bag, which I told her would work well for collecting fairy house supplies. She started wandering around near the trailhead, picking up leaves, rocks, bark, moss, and anything else deemed pretty or cool enough for her fairy house.

She and J built the fairy house shown in the above photo. She took the photo to remember what her fairy house looked like. Then she started gathering again to build another fairy house. I like that she's excited to get outside and look for beautiful and interesting things, and is now more closely observing small things we run across when we're out exploring. I encourage friends with small kids to consider making fairy houses (or slug houses or whatever you want to call them) as a fun exercise in observation with your kids.

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Go check out Go Explore Nature to see photos taken by other nature-loving kids as part of her "Give a Kid a Camera" feature.

Hawk!

Yesterday we had a very exciting bird sighting right from our dining table. I was getting lunch together for the kids when I glanced up and saw a hawk right outside our kitchen door! I ran to grab Roo and we slowly crept to where we could see out the door. The hawk was still there! It stood there for a second, looking at the holly bush next to the door while I quickly snapped the photo below, then flew off.

Hawk outside our kitchen door!

We ran outside to see if we could spot the hawk. It was sitting in a nearby tree, and flew farther away when we came out. We figured it was gone.

I went back to making sandwiches while Roo frantically signed bird over and over and over again, pointing at the door and wanting to see it again. Not two minutes later I saw a flash of brown past our kitchen window as the hawk swooped back into the holly bush it had been eyeing previously.

We dropped what we were doing and all stood near the door, waiting to see if we could catch another glimpse of this hawk. We were not disappointed. We saw rustling in the bush, heard a high pitch "cheep!" then saw the hawk hop out of the holly bush, a dark-eyed junco grasped in one foot. It looked toward the door and, spotting three mesmerized people, promptly took off with its prey.

We were stunned. It was amazing! Doodle was asking where the hawk was going and what was it going to do with the little bird. Roo was signing and saying "bird! bird! bird!" and hitting the door, trying to get me to go find him the bird again. Meanwhile I was scrambling for the bird books to try and identify this beautiful hawk we'd just seen. After consulting with an avid birder friend it's probably a Cooper's Hawk.

I took Roo outside to show him that the hawk was gone. Looking at the snow next to the holly bush we could see where the hawk had left one clear footprint and a larger indentation where the junco had been, complete with one lone junco feather stuck in the snow.

Enlarged image of the hawk from the previous photo.

We certainly were not expecting such an exciting sight while having lunch. The kids and I were all amped up the rest of the afternoon, talking about the hawk and the junco many, many times. No one seemed upset for the unfortunate junco; rather, the only tears that fell were for a hawk that failed to return despite much toddler pleading.

Last night we bought some bird seed and peanut butter to make our own little pinecone bird feeders for the yard. Maybe if we fatten up another few juncos we'll see the hawk again? (I'm kidding. Mostly.)

Great Backyard Bird Count!

2010 GBBC overall photo contest winner

I just found out that the Great Backyard Bird Count is coming up in 11 days. It's running from Feb 18-21, 2011. The basic idea is to get citizen scientists out to observe birds for at least 15 minutes during at least one of the days it's running, and to catalog the numbers and species of birds observed during those times. This will help ornithologists track patterns in bird species distributions and has the added bonus of getting people out in nature to look at birds. Want to find out more? Here's how to participate, and here's where you can find out about local GBBC events in your area. There's also a photo contest associated with the GBBC, so if you're the camera-toting type be sure to check that out too!

I'm hoping to do some birding with Doodle and Roo in our yard, and if the weather cooperates we may make it out to the nearby marsh for a little birding variety. Here are some great tips for birdwatching with kids from the Go Explore blog, and here are some activities and tips from the GBBC kids page.

On a related note, I added another bird to my yard list today: a juvenile Northern Goshawk! It's another Accipiter species, and obviously different from the unidentified Coopers/Sharpie I saw previously. This one had a very obvious speckly back (like this) as well as a white supercilial (above the eye) and absent hooded/capped appearance. It sat perched in our neighbors' tree for hours this afternoon, obviously watching some of the feeder birds in the area. I didn't see it leave, but I hope to see it again.