Birding Season begins..... now.

[science_spot]

As the wildflower studies of summer fall away into crispy brown road-side patches, impending snow marks the beginning of my bird studies.  I only feed the birds here in the snowy winter months, which will be coming up on us any time now.  This (long, holiday) weekend, I will set up the birdfeeders outside and make homemade suet for the suet-feeders.  This year there is another birdfeeder (belonging to my in-laws) in the back by the oaks.  This one is big, so the blue jays are going to be out there, while my smaller feeders will continue to attract alot of woodpeckers, chickadees, cardinals and sparrows. 

We love watching the birds at the feeder anytime we are in the kitchen.  We sometimes take notes about what types are out there and how many.  If you continue to do this and gather more data, you can ask questions and use math and science to show the answers, as shown in an example below.  This is another way to learn the scientific method at home (cheap), as well as provide a start for a whole season of bird related science activities.  I am so excited!!

 

Imagine the data below was taken in your yard, on the dates shown.  The number given is the highest number of birds seen in the same place at the same time.

Data: woodpeckers (all types), cardinal, blue jay, chickadee

12/16 - 6, 2, 8, 11

12/17 - 3, 3, 3, 4

12-19 - 6, 4, 2, 5

12-25 - 1, 3, 6, 14

 

Given this simple data, what questions would you like to ask about the birds in your yard?  You can use the scientific method and the data above to answer.  Read more about the scientific method in my earlier post.

 

Question:

Which type of bird comes in the largest group? 

 

Hypothesis:

Chickadees

 

Proof:

Look at the data.  Which bird has the highest number?  Chickadees do, becasue one day we say 11 of them all at once, and on another day we saw 14 all at once.  That never happened with any of the other bird types.  My hypothesis was chickadees,

 

This activity never really ends.  You can carry it as far as you want to and build a whole  project out of it, if you want.  This is pretty much what we do.  We will draw pictrures of the birds for our bird book.  I am going to buy an identification guide this year, because the one we had for wildflowers was a tremendous help. 

• You can use the data to ask other simple questions for younger kids:  Which bird is most common in our yard?  Is there any bird type we expected to see but didn't?  This may lead to follow-up questions that cannot be answered with the data you have, such as:  Which birds come earliest in the morning?  What do the blue jays like to eat?  Do the chickadees ever come around when the cardinals are out?  With new questions in mind, you can design a new method of collecting data so those questions can be answered.  You might collect the data at certain times each day, or take notes of birds interacting with each other.
• Older kids can be challenged with more complex data sets in order to answer questions such as:  How does the ration of chickadees to woodpeckers change over time?  Can we stimulate an increase in this ratio by changing the food at the birdfeeder?  What is the maximun number of birds (all types) seen in once place at the same time?  How does the population of birds change as winter turns to spring?

 

Birding is a cheap habby and can spark the interest of a child so easily.  I am really looking forward to this bird season!

 

Tonya

The Science Spot