BIRD NESTS AND FEEDERS

Our Bird Experience with Adventures in My Father’s World

The boys and I have enjoyed the extensive study on birds in the Adventures in My Father's World curriculum this year.  (http://www.mfwbooks.com/adventures_my_fathers_world.htm)  I personally enjoyed learning about their nests!  One of my favorite books (from the library) was Cradles in the Trees: The Story of Bird Nests, which was written by Patricia Demuth and illustrated by Suzanne Barnes.

One activity in the Adventures in My Father's World curriculum was to assemble a bird feeder using a kit and a 2 liter plastic soda bottle.  We hung ours on a tree in the back yard where we could see it easily from our living room.  Unfortunately, the squirrels also found it pretty easily, and emptied out half of it in the first day or so.  Does anyone have tricks on keeping squirrels out of feeders, short of buying something expensive?  Oh well, it was fun while it lasted!

My mom, Mary Quarrier, who is now retired, is enthusiastic about family history, photography, birds, and gardening.  This last lifelong interest she undoubtedly picked up from my Grandpa Hess, who left behind a large vegetable garden for her at her house in Maryland when he and Grandma moved back to Florida last year. Her many bird feeders, some rigged on pulleys for easy filling, are always full of lots of different kinds of seeds to attract various feathered friends.  She also takes fascinating pictures of birds with her digital camera, and recently sent us some good ones of hawks near her house.  

Chocolate Bird Nests

Another suggested activity in AIMFW was making "birds nests" with chocolate, peanut butter and lots of other yummy things.  After the first-time novelty of making nest shapes, started making bite-size clusters.  We also froze them until serving time to make them a little less messy.  Here is what we used for ingredients (which is different from what they had listed):

• frosted mini-wheat cereal  (broken apart to resemble grass)
• broken pretzels (for the twigs)
• 1 cup chocolate chips (for mud)
• 1 cup peanut butter (for mud)
• shredded coconut (for grass or feathers)
• mini marshmallows

Heat the chocolate chips and peanut butter on the stove until melted.  Add the dry ingredients, reserving some of the coconut.  Divide into as many piles as you need and form into nests.  For bird eggs, line with coconut and then fill with mini marshmallow (or something else small and edible).

Dr. Dino Article on Mallee Fowls

Have you ever heard of the interesting way that a mallee fowl nests?  It’s another case for a Master Designer who created this world!   The Dr. Dino web site has lots of great stuff about creation science versus evolution.  Here’s the article on the mallee fowl: http://www.drdino.com/articles.php?spec=29

Where the Sparrow Finds a Home

Psalm 84:1-4 --- 1 How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts!  2 My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God.  3 Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, at your altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God. 4 Blessed are those who dwell in your house, ever singing your praise! Selah 

I thought it was fitting to include these encouraging verses of Scripture.  I memorized this Psalm when I was a newlywed, knowing it would give me hope in the days of motherhood yet to come.  Now, twenty years later, I still picture myself, with all my little birdies around me, resting at the altar of God.  I pray that as my birdies leave the home nest, they too will continue to dwell in his presence, singing his praises!