Hey, Boid...

I used to love the Far Side cartoons that featured the occasional bird. The situations were hilarious. In one of my favorites, a woman reads on a park bench, while her baby lies bundled in a stoller several feet away. Wide-eyed with expectation, the baby boy stares back at two birds having a conversation over him. One says to the other: "Its still hungry, and I've been stuffing worms into it all morning."

I love birds, and I love kids, so I guess that's what makes this particular cartoon special to me. Here at the Academy, there is certainly no shortage of kids, or of birds. Or of squirrels feasting off the handouts of the former, and pillaging the outdoor pantry of the latter - no matter how many times I scare them away, they're back at the feeders within minutes.

Each of the students at the Academy is required to keep a birding journal. They are quite thin just now, but we plan to focus on them a bit more as the weather gets colder and the birds are more visible. We made our own journal template, which includes date, location, time, weather conditions, size, color, beak, behavior, elapsed time, identification, and field notes. We have several copies of the Peterson Field Guide "Birds of Eastern and Central North America", and its companion two-CD set "Birding by Ear". The students use the field guide to identify their bird, then use the CD set to make notes about the bird's call and song. I'm surprised how much they've learned about birds, with just a couple of sessions.

Today the students observed an American Goldfinch and a Red-Bellied Woodpecker. The former was simply feeding at the sunflower seed tower, and the latter was observed taking sunflower seeds, one at a time, and sticking them into a hole it had pecked into the bark of an oak tree. We obtained a ladder from the maintenance department, and climbed up to peek. It had quite a collection going in there - behavior that I had never before seen in a bird.

Here is the list of birds that frequent the west campus. I love them all, but the Gray Catbird is my favorite - they love to perch, hidden from sight, and watch me work. I love their songs. To me, they're almost like pets.


Mourning Dove
Ruby-Throated Hummingbird
Pileated Woodpecker
Downy Woodpecker
Hairy Woodpecker
Red-Bellied Woodpecker
Norther Flicker
Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker
Tufted Titmouse
Black-Capped Chickadee
White-Breasted Nuthatch
Red-Breasted Nuthatch
Brown Creeper
Carolina Wren
American Robin
Wood Thrush
Veery
Gray Catbird
Northern Mockingbird
Blue Jay
Cardinal
Grackle
Black-and-White Warbler
Eastern Towhee
American Goldfinch
House Finch
White-Throated Sparrow
Field Sparrow
Dark-Eyed Junco
Red-Winged Blackbird
European Starling