This weekend is the Great Backyard Bird Count! To participate, spend at least 15 minutes on one or more days February 12th through 15th counting birds – in your backyard or anywhere else – and submit your findings online. This will be our third year participating. It’s free fun, and we’ve learned a little bit more about the birds in our neighborhood – including information about this wild turkey who graciously allowed me to photograph him yesterday afternoon morning. Learn all the details here.
MaryAnne is a craft loving educator, musician, photographer, and writer who lives in Silicon Valley with her husband Mike and their four children.
Going out into the snow-covered garden (it’s huge – like a small park) I thought of what more I could do with the girls than pull them on the sled and go to the swing-set. This triggered my inspiration. While Quinn was pulling Audrey. I took two containers and filled one with dried chickpeas (garbanzo) and we got to put one into the tiny tupperware for every bird we saw. When we came upstairs and counted them, we ended up seeing 61 birds (but no wild turkeys – the wildest were crows)! :) The children loved it.
Sounds an interesting project and you got a great picture of the wild turkey! :)
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Bother, I had wanted to participate this year, but with the memorial service and all that there’s no way.
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So interesting! I’ve never heard of this! It reminds me a bit of S. Africa. There’s some major bird watchers there! They would love this!
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I had heard about this but had no idea how accessible it is – 15 minutes is quite doable. Makes me wonder if there is an Australian equivalent.
Love your wild turkey photo!! I had a kookaburra laughing at me as I used our dunny (outdoor toilet) the other day – no chance for a picture then! :)
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What a great initiative for your family to participate in. I hope you get to see some unusual birds and learn some new interesting things.
Your Wordless Wednesday photos are priceless. It is so sweet that you had two extra helpers.
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Now I just need a yard :) I suppose the park would work!
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That is a great idea! We are stuck in the snow right now but we will try that as soon as the weather improves.
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this sounds like fun.
This is awesome! We’ll make sure to participate – thanks for the heads-up.
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How cute! Abby goes to a Mass. Audubon Society preschool – I’ll have to ask her teachers if they are going to do this in class tomorrow!
We did this last year and it was a lot of fun. We have a huge layer of snow on the ground and we’ve enjoyed watching the birds looking for seeds the past few weeks. They hardly seem to notice us.
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This is really neat, thanks for the information, my son will love this idea. And your photo is great, amazing you were able to get that close!
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