birds in winter

Winter can often seem silent, without a sign of life except for random snowmen smiling from our yards.

The next few pictures are from my personal bird feeder.  We decided to fill it with black-oil sunflower seeds just after the first snow.  I have never seen so many different birds at one time!

See if you can identify each of these birds:

BIRD #1:

BIRD #2:

BIRD #3:

BIRD #4:

BIRDS #5 and #6:

BIRD #7:

BIRD #8:

BIRD #9:

(there he is again!) BIRD #10:

And the trickiest of all, BIRD # 11 !!  You may want to try National Geographic's Bird Identifier to help you on this one.

We encouraged the kids to recycle materials from home and put up some bird feeders to help out the birds through this snowy winter we've had.  This one is made from a milk jug.

For our meeting, we had the kids eat half an orange, then they filled it with peanut butter and birdseed.  We set them in the snowy garden outside and within a few minutes, a bird had already found them!

Here are the answers to our bird quiz:

1.  Chickadee

2.  Tufted Titmouse

3.  Cardinal (female)

4.  Eastern Towhee (I think)

5.  Cardinal

6.  Goldfinch

7.  Blue Jay

8.  Tufted Titmouse

9.  Cardinal (female)

10.  Tufted Titmouse

11.  Bluebird! (a juvenile)