A post-turkey day challenge

When it comes to gratitude, The Bird School Project has a lot to be thankful for. Among the many grateful thoughts floating through our minds is appreciation for all of you. By "you," we mean students, teachers, and supporters who have donated money, time, or thought to our project. There are many of you out there and if you are reading this you are probably one of them, so thank you.

On a second note of gratitude there is one more group, or should we say Class (Aves), that The Bird School Project is thankful for. You got it: birds! In a sense, that's what this whole project has been about; sharing our gratitude for birds with others. Now, we are challenging you (that's right, all of "you," aforementioned) to share your gratitude for birds with us!

Here's the challenge:

Step 1) This Turkey-day weekend, find a bird in your neighborhood (or whichever neighborhood you are in) that you are grateful for. Identify it! It can be a new bird, or an old homie. If you can take a picture of it, please do so! All the better for sharing!

Step 2) Write why you are thankful for this bird. This can be anything from its beauty to it keeping you on your toes.

Step 3) Share your gratitude with us! Post your bird gratitude on our Facebook page or Instagram #birdgratitude. You can also like and comment on others posts of gratitude.

bonus points: Create a profile on Cornell's ebird.org. Document you observation of a bird in your neighborhood by following the steps to create a checklist for the spot you observed. Share your checklist with us (Darrow Feldstein, or Kevin Condon, we both have profiles)! 

You're all awesome.

The Ultimate Bird School Week at Carmel Middle School

This past week was the most full and exciting week yet! As said in our last post, we started the week with two days in Salinas teaching at La Joya elementary school and Gavilan View middle school. In two days we taught 380 students! Then, we headed just a bit further south and arrived at Carmel Middle School which had the best bird habitat we have seen on the entire coast! The outdoor space known as "The Habitat" was created from a vacant lot in 1995 by one of the school's past science teachers--Craig Hohenberger--who is actually an Ornithologist by profession. It is now teeming with bird life. Over one hundred and fifty species have been identified there! We got to work in the habitat for three full days and some students were able to meet with us every one of those days.

Taking notes on our observations

On our first day, we were able to do an expanded lesson on sound and bird language. We broke down bird sounds for the students and taught them what to listen for. One can describe a bird sound in four general ways: pitch, volume, rhythm, and quality. We talked about how to describe bird sounds that you hear and even got to listen to bird songs at half speed. If you haven't done that yet, try it out!

Benny teaching about the five voices of the birds

Additionally, we spoke to students about the five voices of the birds. One of the mentors on our naturalist journey has been renowned tracker and nature connection guru, Jon Young. Jon has developed incredible resources, programs, and books for naturalists of all levels to use in developing their skills. His newest book, "What the Robin Knows" is an entertaining guide to the meanings behind what birds are saying. Did you know birds tell us about all sorts of things from weather patterns to season changes and where the nearest bobcat or Cooper's Hawk might be? It just takes practice, as with any new language, but it is most certainly a learnable skill for all! Thankfully, Jon has helped to boil it down to five general voices of birds. Check out the whole world of bird language!

Sitting and listening--what a pleasant activity!

On the second day, we worked on bird identification and field journaling, and had great looks at the many bird species at the habitat. Before lunch, we attended the school gathering and were able to share about our tour down the coast in front of the whole school.

There are huge bird feeders there that attracted four species of sparrows, finches, goldfinches, chickadees, scrub jays, nuthatches, california quail, northern flickers, and more. Students combined birding basics with a little Jack Laws style journaling (check out his work and workshops) and discovered just how fun it can be to discover which birds are living near.

Sit spot time for all!

On the third day, we received a whole bunch of new students, as well as one class that came to our workshop for a third day. We needed something new for them so we designed a bird scavenger hunt deemed, "The Big Bird Blowout." Students put their knowledge of birds to the test, having to identify bird calls, think about habitat, and find different species within the forty minute time frame. We are impressed and convinced that there is a new crew of bird ninjas at Carmel Middle School.

Wrapping up our week at CMS we were sad to be leaving, but very grateful to the wonderful folks at Carmel Middle School and MEarth for having us. A special thank you goes to science teacher Darrell Steely for organizing such a grand hoopla of birding for all of his students and more. Also, thank you to Tanja Roos, executive director of MEarth, the non-profit behind the CMS habitat.

The wonderful amphitheater at the CMS Habitat

Teaching about nature journaling

Observing birds at the feeders--look at those scientists!

Showing off an awesome journal page!

Birding with buddies

Now that we have our journal entry, let's identify these birds!

A stunning journal on the Chestnut-backed Chickadee

Look at all that labeling, great observations!

We got to talk to the ENTIRE school at their weekly "gathering"

Journaling with friends is great! Look how wonderful these came out!

Birding is always a great time to connect with friends

Watching the feeders together

Everyone had their binos on an elusive Bewick's Wren

Scouring field guides during "The Big Bird Blowout"

An action team of scientists--looking, listening, recording

Bird School Project Big Day!

In the birding world, there is an event known to all birders as one of the ultimate (and slightly competitive) challenges--It is called a Big Day. Many times throughout the year, birders head out in the wee hours of the morning on a pre-determined day in search of the most amount of species that they can see in 24 hours. Records are set and broken as birding becomes more popular and as changing climate patterns bring birds to more unlikely regions year after year. In fact, a quartet of birders from Louisiana State University just broke the world record with finding 354 species in one day in Peru this past October! Check out their website, photos, and history of the Big Day at
http://www.lsubigday.org/#!documentary/ck0q

A birding Big Day could certainly be in store for the Bird School Project in the near future. But today, the Bird School project took on another type of Big Day--to teach the most amount of students possible in one school day. Our previous record was 80 students when we visited 2 schools in a single day in the bay area. On this past Monday, we shattered the record with 120 students. But today, we continued our impact with 200 students in one day!!!

We finished our time in Santa Cruz last week and taught on Monday and Tuesday this week in Salinas. We worked with the kindergartners and 1st graders at La Joya elementary school and then today at Gavilan View middle school. Thankfully, we have received assistance from Darrow's childhood friend and fellow UCSC alum--Benny Jacobs-Schwartz. Benny has worked with professional bird researchers on the east coast, the midwest, and even in Costa Rica. He has also worked with kids for the past three summers at Camp Tawonga as a nature educator and wilderness leader. He is a perfect addition to the bird school team for this week and has been a great help!

Benny working with kindergartners at La Joya 

Perks of working at school--Chocolate milk!

Checking out the Song Sparrows and Horned Larks (!)

Getting down to notice the Black and white throat
bands of the Killdeer!

Taking notes on our observations

He was actually this excited to learn about the birds!

A sea of students

Working with these schools has been incredible. The schools are underfunded, the majority of students have free and reduced lunch, and at the same time, they are beyond thankful for our visit. They were attentive, asked great questions, and many asked us how they could get more involved. Things like, "this is actually pretty cool!", "I really like doing this!", and "I can do this for work?!" are simple yet powerful things to hear form these kids. The more we work with students, the more we are able to see our impact on students and see how important this is for students.

Tomorrow, we will begin working with Carmel middle school for the next three days. They have a 5 acre habitat dedicated to bird programming and nature education. We are looking forward to it and will report back soon!

Santa Cruz Friends

On Thursday, we went up into the Santa Cruz mountains to visit Bonny Doon Elementary. Darrow used to live in that area so it was great to be back home! The school buildings are mixed in amongst tall redwoods and we got to teach in the ideal redwood weather--fog! We worked with our friend Kate  Sommer, who is the LifeLab teacher at the school. LifeLab is an incredible organization that has put gardens in many of the schools in Santa Cruz county and the gardens provide great bird habitat. Students from various grades come to Kate throughout the day for science and garden education. In one day we got to work with every grade between kindergarten and 6th grade! It was great to work with such a wide range of students and experiment with our personal teaching methods. 

Listening in the garden

We began with the younger students and worked on listening, quiet observation, and learned how different habitats can have different birds. We got to watch the chickens in the garden for a bit. Who knew you could learn so much about birds just from watching domestic chickens?

What birds can you hear or see right now?

After lunch, we began working with the older students at the school. They knew a surprising amount about the birds on their campus already. In particular, the students knew all about the Acorn Woodpeckers that they have observed creating an acorn granary in some redwood trees near the school entrance. Good eyes! We were able to help them develop a sense for describing bird sounds and turn them on to ebird.org so they can contribute their observations to citizen science.

Our bird ID and diet lesson for the older students

Checking out the Acorn Woodpecker granary.

Checking out Stellar's Jays in the redwoods!

I hear a bird, but in which direction?

It's hard being a California Quail, hiding from potential predators.

We left Bonny Doon hoping our time spent with the classes will carry over to their studies of watersheds this Spring. Good birding!

This is How Beautiful a Thank You Can Be and The Bird School Project Reaches 500 Students!

Our time in Santa Cruz has been filled with visits with old friends and with some of our favorite birding spots. On Monday, we visited Main Street Elementary. A friend of a friend--Ilana Lowe--teaches 5th grade. She has her students keep nature journals and visit sit spots (nature observation spots) so these students were ready to learn more about birds on their schoolyard. We had a class of 25 students and got some wonderful close-up views of Black Phoebes, White-Crowned Sparrows, and Western Scrub-Jays. 

One helpful observation was that we had the chance to observe both the Black Phoebe and the Say's Phoebe.  We rarely get to see both of these birds during the same walk even though they are both common in coastal California. They are both in the genus Sayornis which means they are as closely related as one can get without being of the same species. Check out the differences and similarities below!

Black Phoebe

Say's Phoebe

Thank You Kevin!

We recently received some thank you notes from the Redwood Day School that we visited back in Oakland. We have received thank you notes from several schools now but we thought it would be good to show everyone how amazing these notes and drawings are. These students really spent some time on these and were are extremely grateful for their appreciation of our work. 

Thank You Darrow!

Thank you card from Redwood Day School kindergartners!

Today, we worked with two 3rd grade classes from The Gateway School. This school is down the street from where we used to live in Santa Cruz so we were working with a habitat we know well. The students got to meet the birds in the classroom and then we all went out to look for birds. We explored their LifeLab garden for wintering sparrows, blackbirds, starlings, and hummingbirds. We then continued to the adjacent Lighthouse Field Park where we got good looks at California Towhees and the beautiful bright, yellow Townsend's Warblers. Finally, we made it down the street to the ocean and got to have our first ocean birding session with students! We got to see pelicans, cormorants, gulls, terns, grebes, and surf scoters (a personal favorite...look it up!). The coast is amazingly rich with bird life!

Birding and taking notes on West Cliff

The Gateway School is in our old neighborhood!

Students at Main Street Elementary birding
the schoolyard

Learning birds in the best place--outside!

Kevin and his group identifying Golden-Crowned Sparrows

Check out the sparrow over there!

Finally, The Bird School Project officially reached its 500th student today! We are super thankful for all of the opportunities that led to this and we hope to work with another 500 before we finish in December! 

Big News and Bird Friends

After a very full and exciting week in the bay area, we have arrived in our hometown of Santa Cruz! On our way here, we made a stop to see our dear friend and fellow outdoor educator-- Devin "The El Camino" Peyton. He is working as a resident outdoor instructor for Vida Verde Nature Education. This is one of the coolest outdoor education centers we have seen. They provide three-day nature experiences for inner-city students in the bay area. And the best part is--they offer it all completely free of charge!!! Check out their website and support them if you can, we are 100% behind the work they do. http://www.vveducation.org 


We will be teaching here in Santa Cruz for the week before continuing south. Now that we have had the weekend to travel and organize our things, we think it is time to formally introduce our traveling companions--the birds.


Now, to the untrained eye, people may describe our bird specimens as "creepy," "gross" or "yucky." These are common words we hear from students when they meet the birds. But once kids get to know these birds, they regard them with love and wonder. We think it is important to give them some good spotlight and tell their story so you all might feel the same about them.


These birds are on loan from our teacher and mentor Chris Lay at the UCSC Museum of Natural History Collections. Chris is a major advocate for natural history education and in addition to inspiring us into this field, he has sparked the natural history flame in hundreds of students. He just received a two million dollar grant to create the Ken S. Norris Center for Natural History. Check out the article about it here.

We have four birds traveling with us. José the House Finch, Coop the Cooper's Hawk, Robin the American Robin, and Cedar the Cedar Waxwing. The birds spend most of their time in protective PVC tubes but when it comes time to work with students, they come out for guest appearances. The birds become instant friends of the kids'. The birds help students see the differences in body size, bill type, and colors. They might look "scary" at first, but give them a chance! They died years ago and provide so many opportunities for learning and inspiration in the students we work with.

We carry our friends in protective tubes!
Originally meant for bike travel, the tubes
still help to keep our friends safe

Here are our friends out of
their protective homes

Check out José's bill--meant for crushing
nuts and seeds

The House Finch
Our smallest yet most brightly colored bird.

Coop is a female Cooper's Hawk
Check out the bands on her tail!
She likes to eat smaller birds

Front view of Coop. She has huge talons
for grasping her prey. The males have an
orange-speckled breast

A close-up of Coop's meat-eating bill

Front view of Robin's orange breast
and black and white throat

Close-up of Robin's generalist bill.
She can eat berries, worms, and seeds!

Cedar's back
Check out the yellow band on the tail
the waxy flecks of red give it the name,
Cedar Waxwing

A close up of Cedar's black eye-mask and
the shorter generalist bill.
Cedar eats berries and insects

 

Finally, in other news, the Bird School Project was featured in the Huffington Post blog for our grant award from the pollination project! This is huge news for us! Please check out the article and if you have worked with us, leave a comment on the article about the work we are doing! Check out the article here.