Put a Bird on It

quality time

moments that matter

A few weeks ago, we attended Story Time at our local public library. (As I've written about in previous posts, I'm a big fan of both Story Time and the public library.) Story Time typically has a theme, and this week was no exception. Just in time for the first week of Spring, the theme was: Birds.

NORTH CAROLINA CARDINAL (FEMALE) - Image from NerdyNova

After the final goodbye song, the librarian informed everyone that the library has just installed several new bird houses and that binoculars were available to borrow for observing the birds. The next day, my daughter and I came back to take a look.

Bird watching has a special place in my heart. Growing up, my brother and I spent our after-school hours and weekends and summers, shoving off in our canoe and out into the lake behind our grandfather's house. The bird life was astonishing and my brother, a budding anthropologist even then, chronicled all the birds in the lake (describing their habitats and rendering them in watercolor) for his fifth grade science project. 

RED-BELLIED WOODPECKER - Image from All About Birds

Across a bigger body of water, my uncle traveled all over his native England, and indeed much of the world, on bird-watching expeditions. On our wedding night, my husband and I returned to a bed and breakfast on an Audubon trail to find that the owner had decorated our room for us; she'd never met us before.

Since moving into a new house about a year ago, I've become more interested in bird watching myself. Our house backs up to a forest and songbirds flit through the trees and outside our windows throughout the day.

My daughter is pretty little, so I wasn't sure how bird watching was going to go, but it was one of the most fun mother-daughter dates we've had in a while. We grabbed a pair of binoculars from the library shelves and headed outside. She was unfazed by the chilly weather, and I'm not even sure if she could really see anything through the binoculars, but she seemed to have a fabulous time regardless. We brought along a print copy of the Audubon Guide to North American Birds to help with identification. Above and below are some pictures of the birds we glimpsed on our morning adventure.

BLACK-CAPPED CHICKADEE - Image from National Audubon Society

It's so easy (at least it's easy for me) to move through my days in a whirlwind of busyness. What I loved most about bird watching with my daughter (other than, of course, spending quality time with her) was how it forced us both to slow down and observe our surroundings...and appreciate them. We will definitely go bird watching again. In fact, we invested in a small luxury this week: a new pair of binoculars.

Have you tried bird watching or something like it with your kids? Leave a comment and tell us about it.

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