Roots Guide to Local Birds!

Our friend Hazel Brown in the Tamarack Class has inspired us with the home field guide she is creating of birds that she has been spotting around her home!

Hazel Brown drew this Sandhill Crane and dictated her observations to a parent. 

We would love to get a scope of the many birds all of our Roots students are noticing around their homes to help us create a 'Roots Guide to Local Birds.'

Yesterday, we shared a system for you to take part in your own local bird count. As you're counting birds this week, choose one bird to make observations about. Where do you notice the bird? On the ground, in a tree, on a fence post or power pole, at a feeder? Or is it always flying overhead? What other observations can you make about the birds' size, color, and sounds?

We invite you to set up a page as Hazel did above:

• Record the name of your bird 
• Draw a picture of your bird (in color or black & white)
• The child can dictate their observations about the bird to a grown up or older sibling to be recorded on the page

Then send us this page to be published in our 'Roots Guide to Local Birds.' You can mail the page to us at PO Box 2785 in McCall, scan and email it to a teacher, or take a photo and email it. If you choose to send us a photo we will need a clear photo of the whole page with no shadows. Students are welcome to send us more than one bird to be added to our guide!

All students who contribute to the field guide will receive a copy once it is published. We will also be printing and laminating copies for other students to view and use in the Science Center of our forest classroom.

Not seeing many birds in your own yard? Try adding a bird feeder or bird bath and see who you attract! Check out some simple bird feeder ideas HERE.

Need help identifying the birds you are seeing? If you don't have physical copy of a field guide, we like this bird id app by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology: MERLIN BIRD ID



Happy Bird Watching!