Our New Hobby: Bird Watching

I always thought anyone who thought bird watching was a pleasant past time was either old, eccentric, or just plain boring.  Well, I guess I fall into one of those categories now;-)  Since we have snow this year, we started feeding the birds on the first day of our first snow.  Our first visitors were typical.

 Mr. & Mrs. Cardinal, and some type of snow bird, we have several of these.

 Red-Bellied Woodpecker

He has black & white spots on his back but was too timid to stick around for a good picture.

 Downy Woodpecker

I think he's cute, its a lot smaller than the red-headed or red-bellied ones.  He has a big white strip down his back an all his markings are symmetrical!

 Chickadee {so cute!}

And here is a new {to me} one...

European Starling, they are different colors in different seasons-

More spots in the winter: more black in summer.

A couple of Blue Jays frequently stop by, but not when I have the camera ready. ;-)

We aren't really doing a unit study, but it is fun to hear the kids discussing the bird types.  Even the younger ones are picking up on them.  When I got the starling picture, {I had never seen this bird before} Peter had already found it in the bird book!  He is particularly interested in the birds.  I sort-of put him in charge of feeding them, but Joe likes to do it sometimes, too.

I must add that I really enjoyed photographing them, too!  I used my big lense and it did a great job.  {I was afraid all the fingerprints on the windows would show, but they don't!;-) }

Happy winter!

Judy