Art Show

On Friday Gabby brought her bird journal to the Quakertown library for a homeschool art show. It was a simple gathering but cute. We had finger foods and plastic champagne glasses with sparkling grape juice. We walked around and looked at the other children's art. It was especially fun when the little kids would see us admiring and run over to tell us all about their pictures. Gabby's much to shy for that, although she would have done it if it was required. Heaven forbid she ever not do exactly what is expected of her!

We got some good ideas for future projects - Jackson Pollock style painting on canvas, newspaper collages, and pottery.

It got a bit dull for the boys - I had William and Fielding with me. To be honest, I was bored too after awhile. We spent some time just playing in the children's area of the library. Then we went home.

Gabby's journal was a beautiful addition to the show. I'm so proud of all the work she did on it. I hope she's found a new hobby for herself.
Here are the pictures from the day.

Novice birders

Our obsession with Big Red and Ezra inspired us to use our election day-off from school for a little birding. This was our first attempt and I can't say it was a failure because we all came home happy but it was not an amazing success in terms of quantity of birds spotted and certainly not in terms of birds actually identified. We did see birds and named a few and perhaps most important of all, played at a playground for awhile.

I took the kids to Peace Valley Park- a lovely spot for birding, exercising, and enjoying nature, about 20 minutes from our home. We brought our binoculars and Peterson's field guide and warm jackets since it was pretty chilly outside. The field guide was donated to our homeschool by my parents since they had an extra. The binoculars also came from my parents, but not so recently. They bought them when I was in 3rd grade. My teacher, Mrs. Eleanor Franey, encouraged all the parents to buy the students binoculars when we were doing a bird unit. I don't think that unit was part of any curriculum the district had put together. Mrs. Franey was just an incredible teacher who taught beyond the basic and opened up the world for her students. Maybe it is lame to be using a 25 year old pair of binoculars, but I think it is pretty cool that my kids are watching birds with them. Thank you Mrs. Franey!

Just a few tips if you ever go birding with kids:
1. The noise of the stroller will scare birds away,
2. The skipping and running children will scare birds away,
3. The singing children will scare birds away, and lastly
4. If in the unlikely event that you have met some stalwart and fearless bird who has withstood your efforts at family birding, your children will never agree on what bird in the field guide it actually is.

We met a few such birds. The robin and the blue jay and the vulture were easily agreed upon. However, we may have seen several tufted titmouses with no tufts, an eastern phoebe, and some brownish bird with a bright yellow mark no one could agree on.

The final birds of the trip were the best and thank goodness everyone accepted my classification as "great blue heron." So beautiful and graceful. A happy way to end it all.

Here's a shot of my best birders.

We're addicted!

Yesterday we checked out a link our homeschool group sent out showing a live feed of a red-tailed hawk in Ithaca, NY. The hawk, known as Big Red, is a 9 year-old female and the camera is set above her nest. She has 3 eggs. One had already hatched and yesterday afternoon we got to see the second hatch. The camera runs all day and there is a chat running at the same time.

The kids and I have had a hard time peeling ourselves away from it. Even now, as I type, I have an uneasy feeling that something exciting might be happening in the tab next to this one -- should I just click over to check....?

Okay, I'm back. Big Red is still just sitting on her babies. That is what we see most of the time. Here she is with a vole, a pigeon, and a sparrow. And if you can't tell, she's not chatting it up with them -- those are dead animals she uses for food, for herself and the babies. That fact grossed out several of the people chatting yesterday. I'm not sure what they expected -- delivery from Dominoes?

Now occasionally Big Red gets up and we get a glimpse of those fuzzy-feathery little angels beneath her. Actually, they're a little clumsy and very amusing to watch. Not really angelic. But certainly out of this world, the human world.

Sometimes we get to see them with their dad. Yes, this is a very happy little family. Papa - Ezra - doesn't spend much time at the nest. But he hunts for them and occasionally gives mom a break. He takes a turn on the nest so she can hunt. I love that. The moderator said that he is always in the vicinity, keeping an eye out for trouble. He will defend his nest if he has to. I love that too.

The site is maintained by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology -- the same guys behind Project Feederwatch. They had to install the cameras and microphones 70 feet high. Here's a video that gives you an idea of what it took -- with some good footage of the happy couple as well.

For a little while yesterday, both hawks took a break from parenting and we had a great view of the hawklings. I started screaming, "Gabby, Bri, come quick, come quick! Everyone, hurry!" Max was totally freaked out, but I think the girls knew what the commotion was all about. We are just so into this, it is on our minds all day. We were even inspired to go birding. We went to the beautiful Peace Valley Park. I'll post about that this afternoon.

Poor Max received little trumpeting and banners when he came home from work. We were too absorbed in the Hawk Cam to listen to him talk about his day. Here he is:

"Pay attention to me. I'm cute too!"

I'm not sure if today will be any different. I checked on Big Red first thing this morning. Chick 3 is supposed peck its way out this afternoon. I'm sure we'll all be there.

Here's a visual timeline of our current homeschool "curriculum."
Three eggs
One chick out. Feeding time

And now there are 2!

A peak inside. When this was live, we could actually see movement in that egg! It is now about 1/4 pecked away.