"Nature-study is science brought home.  It is a knowledge of botany, zoology, and geology as illustrated in the dooryard, the cornfield or the woods back of the house." - Handbook of Nature Study, Page 21

This week we were to pick another item from our focus area to read to the children about, and have our nature walk time.  In addition to picking another bird species to focus on, I have also chosen to focus on beginning recognizing bird songs this week.  This is something that I have been desiring to do for a long time.  I was surprised to see that Hannah already had a jump start on me, by picking around on the keyboard trying to mimic some of the sounds.

The weather is slowly starting to improve, and this week we we're able to get back outside in the great outdoors!  We went for a long nature hike in the woods behind our home early Sunday afternoon before Easter dinner.  My husband and my Dad joined the children and I for our walk this week.  Gabby stayed behind with Grandma.  It was sunny and about 45 degrees, not too cold. Our main objective for our walk was to spend some time observing the birds around us in quietness, in hopes of seeing and hearing a bird that is not a frequent visitor to our feeders.

To start out our walk, we first took notice of our creek and how much calmer it was since the snow and rains had stopped.

We also took notice of many different kinds of mosses, and took a small sampling of each.  We were really impressed with all the different kinds, and the beauty in each one.  And also were impressed with all the different places we saw it growing:

"on a stick"

"on the ground"

"on an old log"

"on the creekbank"

We also saw lots at the bottoms of trees.  We were interested in checking into the names of the varieties, but after checking at home, we found that there can be up to 100 different moss kinds in our area; that'll be a subject to dive into later!  But we sure had fun just observing it and also using the moss we brought home later for a project.

We were also hoping to find some bird feathers or old nests but came up empty handed for that.  But we did have a few moments of quiet to listen to a bird singing quite closeby.  We used the binoculars and the bird cooperated quite well by sitting still for a long time for us to get a good view.  We identified it as a male Eastern Towhee.  This is one I haven't seen near our home in a long time.  He was singing so beautifully, and I was able to get a good recording on my new Sound Recorder that hubby surprised me with recently!  I haven't, however, figured out how to upload it to my blog yet.  But here is what we heard.  He has a characteristic sound which seems to call..."Drink your teeeeeeeeee!" 

We also observed several signs of woodpeckers.

The kids also took time to have a little swinging from vines fun.

Here is a list of other items we observed:  Red-Tailed Hawk flying high above, huge old oak tree, deer tracks, Shagbark Hickory tree, wild onions.

I do have a confession to make, I became quite frustrated with my kids towards the middle/end of this walk because they just couldn't keep quiet!  I tried so hard to have them observe peacefully and quietly for more than just a moment, so there wasn't much opportunity to really listen; and I think when the trees are still stripped bare of leaves and everything crunches underneath it's just louder anyways.  So, I admit towards the end, I sent them home a bit early with their Dad, how awful am I!!!  I need to seriously work on patience with these walks.  Since I love nature so much myself I tend to make it about "me" too much.

So my Dad and I hung back and enjoyed some quietness listening to things around us.  I took this video clip towards the end while sitting by the creek, you can hear the Red-Bellied Woodpecker in the background (another one we have learned the song of this week).  And also my 2-year old screaming off the deck for "Mama, Grandpa, where are you?" (guess it just can't be completely quiet with kids, huh?!)  I realize though the most precious sound on this clip is her voice.

I also did an entry on the Eastern Towhee in my journal because later on Sunday while standing on our deck, my Dad and I observed him taking a bird bath in our creek.  It was soooo neat!

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