“We LOVE your stories. I am obessed with the story Vulture View, and built a whole lesson around it, teaching kids all sorts of weird stuff about the adaptations of vultures. We even built our own models of carrion and hid them around the forest while the vultures (my co-teacher and I) hunted for them! It was one of the best lessons we’ve taught and really stuck with the kids.”

This quote is from Chrissy Larson, the teacher Balsam of the Nuts about Nature Preschool run by the   Portland Environmental Education Department. She wrote to me this week. Below are some photos she took of her activities. (more…)

Yes, I know it’s hard to see. Click here to see it larger. This is one of my all time favorite birds, the brown creeper. Talk about camouflage! It looks like bark. It walks on bark. Sometimes it nests on bark that has slightly pulled away from the tree. I photographed this one December 2009, here in Indiana.

We rescued this wood duck chick that got separated from its mother.  The mother duck and the rest of the chicks made it to the creek. But this one was trapped in an empty swimming pool. It was fluffy and rambunctious. It liked to snuggle in my pocket and would only quiet down when it was leaning against me. Took it to a licensed rehabilitator and it is doing fine.

Chick, burr! When I hear that sound I know that the neighborhood Scarlet Tanager has stopped in for a visit. The red of this bird is so different from that of a cardinal. I always gasp when I see it. Its color seems to glow.

Look who was in the front yard on April 5th? That’s right. A Canada goose. Of course this is the perfect animal to celebrate my new book, being released this month:  Honk, Honk, Goose: Canada Geese Start a Family. Fortunately the snow melted a day later.

Thanks to super science teacher Bobette Owen (on the right in the photo), I visited Miller Ridge Elementary on Feb 12, 2009.  The students were great! I love that they have so much science in this school. Just look at how Ms. Owen combined science with writing and poetry. In honor of my book Vulture View (illustrated by Steve Jenkins and published by Henry Holt) her students wrote vulture list poems!

Interested in vultures? Buzzard Day in Hinckley, Ohio is coming up on March 15, 2009.

Here is yet another feeder visitor: a Sharp-shinned Hawk. These hawks are smaller than most Cooper’s Hawks. This one has a lovely hood and reddish eye. “Sharpies,” as some birders call them, hunt birds. We have seen thousands of them flying during migration.

Hawk at feeder

Okay, so we were planning on attracting seed-eating birds, not bird-eating birds when we put up this feeder. But if you build it, they will come. Sharp-shinned hawks and Cooper’s hawks visit our feeder in order to hunt the smaller birds that visit our feeder.  These two types of hawks can overlap in size. But the generally bigger ones are Cooper’s hawks. The smaller ones are sharp-shinned hawks. This one appears to be a Cooper’s.  The hawks are beautiful to watch. But I am always hoping they will not eat my favorite songbirds!