You Can’t Fly All the Time – Bird Safety Behaviors
Monday, September 17, 2012
Virtual Book Club: Lois Ehlert
We’ve had a couple neighborhood cats frequenting out
backyard lately. The boys find it pretty entertaining to see one meandering
between the swings or tip-toeing poolside, but I think they have an ulterior
motive – not unlike the bold and spirited cat character starring in Lois Ehlert’s
Feathers for Lunch. As you might imagine from the title, said cat has his eye
on a lunch of the bird variety. I think the cats we’ve seen lately have similar
intentions – we have a pet-less backyard, an abundance of chubby little
lizards, and a few bird nests under our eaves. I have to say, I’m rooting for the birds and
lizards to come out on top in our yard, just like the birds in Ehlert’s book.
For
our book-club activity, we decided to investigate bird escape tactics.
The fabulous team of The Educators’ Spin on It, ToddlerApproved, and Mommy and Me Book Club are hosting a year-long virtual book club
for kids, and this month’s featured author is Lois Ehlert. A different author
is featured every month, and it’s not too late to get on board! Amy Krouse
Rosenthal is slated for October. Visit one of the host blogs to get the full
schedule!
We first discovered Feathers for Lunch in our local
library, and as a result of Ehlert’s characteristic bright illustrations and
the mischievous cat humor, it became a regular visitor to our home. The combination
of Ehlert’s appearance in the virtual book club and our recent cat visitors prompted
us to enjoy the book again. Narrated in simple verse, the illustrations are
really the star. Twelve North-American bird species are brightly illustrated in
Ehlert’s well-known collage style, and their calls are printed alongside them.
An added bonus are the illustrations of various plants and wildflowers, with
accompanying labels. The book follows the cats exploits in the garden,
beginning with an explanation that his regular food has become “tame and mild”
and he’s looking for something “spicy.” Fortunately for the birds, the cat
wears a bell, and the birds “know what their wings are for.”
After reading about the birds’ escapes from the hunting
cat, I asked the boys how the birds around our house might be avoiding the cat
visitors we had noticed. While the fly-away strategy suggested by the book was
quick to be mentioned, other ideas were lacking. I suggested B think about what
he does when he’s playing monster with T. He pointed out that they run from
each other and hide. I explained that the birds fly rather than run, but the hiding
is an important part of staying safe when they’re not flying. We decided to be
photo-detectives to look for bird hiding places around our home. Some of the
locations we spotted included:
A nest tucked in a roof tile
An owl camouflaged in the tree branches (yes, an owl
lives in our yard – so cool!)
Cypress trees with branches strong enough for bird
perches, but not cat climbing
As for the lizards, their speed makes them very tough to
pursue, but we did notice that they are good at finding tiny hiding spots,
including:
the holes in the block wall
behind the shed
and even the attic vent (we’ve found more than one
stowaway lizard upstairs, especially in winter).
I’d like to say we did some bird identification using
Ehlert’s book as a field guide, but I’m afraid the zoom lens is the closest we’re
going to get to our backyard wildlife for now, but the boys are working on the
quiet waiting skills necessary for the birds to come around. How do you teach
your kids to observe wildlife in a calm and quiet way?
Appropriate for: todders, preschool, primary grades
P.s. Loving the Ehlert feature? Check out my other posts on Ehlert books:
Fish Eyes (a book exchange activity)
Planting A Rainbow (included as a gift in a starting school post)
If you have a Lois Ehlert book and activity to share, you can add your link to the blog hop - if you have questions, be sure to visit a host before linking up!
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B has started to practice shoe-tying. He WANTS to be able
to do it. He tied his own shoes every day of our recent trip (even though I
sometimes had to re-tie later) and even tied his brother’s (which is no easy
task on a squirmy 2 year old). But this week he’s back to wanting me to do it,
which I believe is thanks to a combination of morning sluggishness and a lack
of confidence in his (often loose) tying abilities. He is concerned they’ll
come undone at school and he’ll either have to take the time to fix them or ask
for help. Some of the best advice I’ve read about teaching 
