Birds from Birchbark House

We're reading The Birchbark House which is about a Native American family who lived at the same time as Laura Ingalls Wilder who wasn't that nice to people without white skin. We liked the Little House books, but we learned about how they used to treat Native Americans. We did NOT like that part.

Anyway, in The Birchbark House there are birds, and we thought we'd blog about them, so that's how it all came out. And what we're blogging about first is Golden Breasted Woodpecker. They live in Minnesota! That's where one of my moms used to live.

When we looked up the Golden Breasted Woodpecker, we couldn't find any information at first. Usually when we type in a bird name, we get a lot of information. We learned that the Golden Breasted Woodpecker is sometimes considered to be a Green-Barred Woodpecker. So, we're going to blog about that.

There are a lot of Green-Barred woodpecker calls on this page, and here's a link to it.

This bird is found in east and central South America. We had a hard time finding other information. We learned that sometimes research is easy and sometimes, it is hard! We'll try another bird in a few days!

Birds are Living Dinosaurs

My friend Gracen asked us to research if birds are actually living dinosaurs. We googled it, and the Museum of Natural History said that many paleontologists (which are dinosaur scientists) think that birds are living dinosaurs. They think that because they have nesting, brooding, skeleton features, and maybe even feathers in common. Ornithologists which are bird scientists don't agree all the time with that.

This theory started because once, the archaeopteryx fossil was found. They thought it was a dinosaur until they saw the feather imprints. The archaeopteryx ha

s jaws and teeth like dinosaurs. Its skin was scaly like the dinosaurs. It had tiny limbs with three claws. It also had a long tail. All like dinosaurs. The only thing about the tail that was like a bird was that it was covered in feathers. The wings, the back of the neck and the top of the head were covered with feathers. Here is a picture of a fossil of an archaeopteryx. We think it should be called an Ardenopteryx. And, here is a link to archaeopteryx images. OK, Gracen, we did the research, you should come to our house now!

Winter Birds in Michigan

Sorry we haven't blogged in a while. I have school now, and we don't see as many birds because it's winter, and there aren't as many birds in the winter. We did put birdseed in a flat tin in the front yard for birds, and squirrels came!

Our friend Al got us a bird feeder for Christmas that we have to wait until the ground isn't frozen to put out.

We do see some birds like black capped chickadees, crows and northern cardinals. Here are some other birds that come to bird feeders in Michigan in the winter:

blue jays

American Crows

Black Capped Chickadees

Northern Cardinals

Downy Woodpeckers

Red Bellied Woodpecker

Tufted Titmice

White Breasted Nuthatch

European Starling

American Goldfinch

House Sparrow

Morning Dove

Since we've never written about European Starlings, we're gonna look it up.

The European Starling likes to sit on buildings, telephone wires, and parking lots. They probe the ground looking for food. They travel in flocks often with grackles, crows, and blackbirds. It is a medium sized bird with a pointed tail and short wings.

You can hear the call here.

Do you want us to learn about anything for you? If you do, leave a comment!

Facts of the Harpy Eagle for Gracen

We decided to do this post because our friend Gracen sent us an email about Harpy Eagles. So, we found out more about them for him.

This is the Harpy Eagle call.

They don't live in North America. They live in southeastern Mexico, northern Argentina and southern Brazil.

The females are bigger than the males. They have a 6 1/2 foot wing span. A wing span is how long the wings are when they're stretched out both ways. They weigh between 10 and 20 pounds.

They strike their prey after pursuit among the trees. They eat sloths, monkeys, opossum and some reptiles and birds. They have rear facing talons with some as big as a grizzly bear's claw BUT the Harpy Eagle can only carry prey that is half of its weight.

They are endangered. The biggest threat is habitat loss and hunting.

Here are two pictures of Harpy Eagles.

The Downy Woodpecker Post

My mom, Jill, was in the backyard, and she saw a woodpecker. She took a picture of it, but she didn't know what it was. But, when I came home from school, I told her. We found out what it was by the internet. First, we thought it might be a redheaded woodpecker, but it didn't have red all over the head, so then we looked at downy, and it was JUST like downy. We know it is a male because it has red on the head. The females do not. We've seen a downy before in the net at the Nature Center when GranDaddy was here a long time ago. That was the first time we ever went to the bird banding station.

Facts we learned while making this post:

Today we are using my Bird Songs: 250 North American Birds in

Song book for information.

They are the smallest woodpecker in North America. There are lots of Downy Woodpeckers. They live in city forests and in wilderness forests. They live all over, and do not migrate. They eat insects.

This is the call.

This is a picture of a Downy Woodpecker that we got from my mom, Jill.

This is a picture of the downy woodpecker that we found on the internet.

Red Shouldered Hawk Facts

Yesterday, I was playing on the playground, and we saw two red shouldered hawks. They were soaring. And, we're not sure that they're red shouldered hawks, but we think they are because we heard the call. We knew the call because blue jays copy it and we've been hearing blue jays doing it, and we just knew the call. Here it is again.

Facts we learned while making this post:

5 day old red shouldered hawks can shoot their feces (which is their poop) over their nest. When you see a lot of bird poop on the ground, you know that you're close to an active nest.

They eat small mammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds and crayfish. They catch them by running or hopping after them on the ground or they drop on a prey from a perch high in a tree.

The female puts her nest high in the tree. She lays 2 to 5 eggs a year and sits on them for 33 days.

Here is a picture we found on the internet.

Arden and The Turkeys

My friend Chris has turkeys and I've tried to pet them and I never have. But I have pet one of her chickens, and I named it Silk Feathers with the nick name Silky. I named it Silk Feathers because its feathers felt like silk.

Here's a picture of me petting Silk Feathers.

Here are Chris' turkeys.

Here's the turkey I made for school.