Tuesday, 3 February 2015

Look Up!

From time to time, it pays to look up from what we are doing and see what we can see in the sky.  Guess what we saw when we did?  A Black Kite!  The bird, not the toy.


It is one of the rare birds of prey in UK, and a cousin of the equally rare Red Kite.  Kites (the bird) are easily identifiable by their size (they are bigger than other more common birds of prey such as the kestrels and the sparrowhawks), their circling motion in the sky, and their forked tail.

Our luck in spotting relatively rare birds seem quite high lately as Tiger saw a grey heron fly over the house the following day.


As both birds present rare sightings to us, I chose to draw the kite into my Calendar of First while I wondered whether Tiger would draw the heron.  He drew an Airbus A380 instead.


How relevant is this to our Calendar of First?  Not a whole lot, but Tiger drew it at the same time as I was drawing the kite, and both the plane and the bird can be found flying in the sky, so maybe there is a connection here, if we push hard enough.  At the very least, I just like Tiger's drawing and the fact that he has been practising.

While we were at it, I thought it would be sensible to review what happens to animals in winter, and to look into how birds of prey survive in the urban landscape (since we saw the kite in an urban area).




This post is linked up to:
  1. Keeping Company: January Link-Up
  2. Virtual Refrigerator 
  3. My Week in Review #22
  4. Collage Friday: A Typical Week in Foundations
  5. Hip Homeschool Hop - 2/3/15 
  6. Fininshing Strong #41
  7. Weekly Wrap-Up: The one in which I'm hoping for an early spring
  8. Science Sunday: Muscles and Movements in Other Organisms

14 comments:

  1. What a gorgeous drawing of the Kite!!

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  2. I love that drawing, it's gorgeous!

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    1. Which one, the bird or the plane? :-) Thank you, nonetheless!

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  3. I totally agree with the others Hwee. You are an incredibly talented artist!
    I smiled when you stated that Tiger drew a plane. Boys and their toys....

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    1. Thank you for your kind words, Claire. I grew up being told that I was rubbish at art and had no talent whatsoever, so I guess I'm not doing too badly in this area these days. :-)

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  4. Airbus A380 !! ha ha. I think you have a comedian there. The kite painting is just lovely.

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    1. Thank you, Carol. :-) Homeschooling my son has certainly broadened my sense of humour in many ways!

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  5. I love the kite--your Calendar of Firsts is really turning out lovely. And we have great blue herons here (a very similar species to your grey herons) and they are so striking, aren't they? I love seeing them on the hunt at the lake.

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    1. Thanks, Celeste. :-) I do wonder whether I am trying to make a nature journal entry without feeling as though I'm doing it... While I know that the 'proper' Calendar of Firsts only has a written list with no illustrations, I just can't help drawing something into mine! I hope this doesn't mess up your link-up! Do let me know if it does, and I'll try to be good! :-)

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    2. Oh, not at all! I think a watercolored Calendar of Firsts is wonderful! I actually do quite a bit of "first collecting" in my nature journal, so they get merged here too quite often. :)

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    3. That's good to know, Celeste! :-)

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  6. I really love how you merged painting into your calendar! What a great way to remember exactly what you saw that day.

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    1. Thank you, Kristyn! I enjoy drawing, and there is a lot of space in my calendar so I thought adding pictures to the blank spaces would make my list more colourful and interesting. :-)

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