Inspired by the pond studies done by
Claire and
Lucinda, we decided to see what's going on at one of the bigger ponds near us. Compared to the study done by the above-mentioned families, ours is more like the slacker version of the English pond study. I wanted to take a break from being indoors, so I took some bird food for Tiger to feed the birds and headed out without any specific lesson plan. My idea for that day was: we'll just see what we see. Hardly inspirational, but there you are. Some days I just need to relax.
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| The pond was busy, and every bird was hungry. |
This year spring has come very late in England so on that day we saw many birds paired up, ready to set up family:
- pochard
- greylag goose
- mandarin duck
- mallard
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| Bird couples |
Further along, we saw a few other birds that seemed to be on their own:
- coot
- moorhen
- mute swan
- canada goose
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| Eligible bachelors |
But wait, what did we see among the reed beds?
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| A young family of Canada Geese |
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| Baby coots! |
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| Mrs Swan sitting on her nest. Cygnets hatching soon? |
What else did we see? Different shades of green. With just a quick glance, we saw at least five different shades of green. Isn't nature simply marvellous?
We took frequent stops on the walk for Tiger to take down a few observational notes in his notepad. There are no fancy drawings to go with his notes, but he's done better than I have in terms of taking field notes, which means I'd better shape up as a role model in nature journaling... I guess relaxation time is over.
This post is linked up to:
-
Spring Carnival
- Hobbies and Handicrafts - May 31
- Collage Friday - Joy and Loss
- Weekly Wrap-Up: The First Week of Summer Break 2013
- Science Sunday: It's no kids week!
- Hip Homeschool Hop - 6/4/13
I love just going out with no agenda - it leaves room for anything to happen! It looks like you saw plenty - and managed to capture it to share with us - thank you. We have greylag geese at our pond but I've never looked them up so thanks for that too! I'm excited about going to our pond on Monday to check if our coot chicks have hatched. What a wonderful time of year.
ReplyDeleteMy kids love field studies like this but don't ever want to take notes. I gave up on the nature notebook a long time ago, but still like the idea.
ReplyDeleteLucinda - yes, it's nice to just go out and see what we find. It's not always easy to be ready with lesson plans for everything, and possibly not always necessary either. :-) With the summer around the corner, I feel like just winding down already! Hope you'll swee the coot chicks on Monday. I'll keep an eye out for your post.
ReplyDeleteJulie - I wasn't expecting Tiger to take notes so it was a pleasant surprise to me that he did, but it doesn't happen all the time. :-) I think nature journaling is a really nice idea, but some children are more interested to observe and be in nature rather than recording. I like to see us doing more journaling, and will try to encourage it by modeling it myself, but I won't push the point if the child is not keen.
ReplyDeleteThat looks like a fun trip to the pond.
ReplyDeleteI love the picture of the coupled mandarin ducks. I've never seen a female, although we do have a male. I wonder if they'll have chicks?
ReplyDeleteYour pond is huge! So much scope for wildlife.
I really enjoyed this Hwee!
Claire and Beth - thank you both for stopping by. I'm glad you've enjoyed the photos of the birds from the pond as much as we have enjoyed seeing them. :-)
ReplyDeleteIt is great that you were able to identify them - I'd be hopeless at it.
ReplyDeleteThank you for linking up with the Spring Carnival
I think a lot of us have been inspired by their posts.........
ReplyDeleteSadly the pond/creek I've found doesn't have this great supply of birds like ya'll seem to of found.