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| White-breasted Nuthatch |
Our young citizen scientists strapped on their trusty binoculars and headed out into their local neighbourhood to find birds. Our bird expert, Wlad from the Friends of Fish Creek Park, led the way.
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| Wlad pointing out a bird |
Only a few hundred metres from the school we heard a mixed flock. We kept our eyes wide and focused our binoculars on White-breasted Nuthatches, Red-breasted Nuthatches, Black-capped Chickadees, and a Downy Woodpecker.
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| Mr. Downy Woodpecker, please show your face! |
We continued on and were delighted to see a Common Raven flying overhead, several Black-billed magpies, a couple of Rock Pigeons, and a House Sparrow.
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| House Sparrow |
Before heading back to the school we did a scan over Nose Hill Park. So glad we did! A Merlin flew in and we watched her for several minutes as she ate her breakfast. The food web in action right before our very eyes!
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| Looking across to Nose Hill. A Merlin atop the wooden pole on the right! |
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| A closer look of the Merlin enjoying her catch. |
Back at the school our other class played fun bird-themed games with Vanessa from CPAWS.
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| Playing Hawk and Mouse |
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| Who has the mouse? |
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| Vanessa makes everything fun! |
The birding fun continued when our second group came out on our walk.
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| What did we spot? |
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A Northern Flicker!
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A pair of House Finches were spotted in a nearby tree. Students were most excited when they were lucky enough to spot the focus bird they'd been learning about. That was the case with this Dark-Eyed Junco.
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| A dark shot of a Dark-Eyed Junco |
Several times during our walk we heard a Blue Jay calling. Just as we were getting close to the school we spotted a pair of them in a backyard along the route. Hooray for Blue Jays!
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| Blue Jay |
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Delighted by birds
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Back inside we learned how to submit our sightings to eBird.org.
We saw a total of 13 different species! It took less than 10 minutes to upload them all. Our students are now eager to use their own eBird accounts to submit the observations they make on their own. Citizen Scientists for life!
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Black-Capped Chickadee
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