We’ve had our Celebrate Urban Birds packets for two whole days, and this morning JediBoy was bursting to get out and record some birds “for the scientists.” He loves the idea of participating in real research by doing one of his favorite things - birdwatching.
Although I explained to him that it’s perfectly okay to watch birds in our own yard, he was adamant that our first data come from somewhere else. He chose his favorite park, which has a playground and then a long grassy, lightly-wooded area next to a stream. We hadn’t been there over the winter so he was very excited to get there. It was gray and drizzling during our ten minute watch so we didn’t see any birds in our selected area, but “Zero Means a Lot” - to quote one of the study’s slogans. The researchers are interested both in where the birds are as well as where the birds are not.
We recorded our data - where we were, and when, and what the area was like, as well as our zero bird count. JediBoy drew a fanciful blue bird on his sketch pad. When BabyGirl woke up (she’d been in the sling) we headed creekside to collect some rocks for this week’s Unplug Your Kids project.
