I was in the kitchen cleaning up from breakfast and listening to the silence. Something was definitely wrong. The kids were on their way to go outside. That endeavor does not ever elicit silence. My curiousity was quenched when I heard Missy tiptoe into the kitchen.
"Mommy, come quick. We see a bird!"
I followed her tiptoes to the back door. The rest of the crew were huddled by the back door looking out the window. There on our back lawn was a black bird. My first thought was "We need to do some serious birding so the kids know that a crow is not a big deal." On further inspection, though, I realized that it was not a crow because it was not a true black. Mia commented on this as soon as the thought traipsed across my mind.
"It looks like it is black, but it's head looks purple and the rest of his body looks green."
Sure enough, the bird was a translucent purple and green. If you looked at it one way it looked black, if you looked at it a different way, then you could see the purple and the green. My kids were mesmerized by this. Missy ran for her handy, dandy bird book. She looked up all of the black birds. By process of elimination, we decided that the beautiful bird on our back lawn was a Brewer's Blackbird.
We stayed at the back door for about 15 minutes, admiring him (it was a male) and listening to his call. The kids observed that when he made his call his little tail jerked upwards. The kids were fascinated. All good things have to come to an end, though, and the kids barreled outside to play forcing the Blackbird to fly to parts unknown. I went back to the kitchen satisfied with our spontaneous nature study lesson. I think Charlotte Mason would have been proud.