Bird

Okay, so monday is Nature Journaling at our homeschool. We had a fun one last week where we went out to the back field for a sort of "picnic" and then were joined by a very curious horse! We had to cut that one short and head back to some land on "our side" of the fence. Sheesh. She found our animal crackers to be delightfully yummy. (personal note: don't feed the wildlife...especially when you don't want a 900 lb visitor on your picnic blanket.)

Today, it was wildlife of the bird kind.
The boys had been outside after lunch for a little while now. (long enough for me to move the laundry, check the e-mail and prepare a NetFlix for sending.) Tide and I finally are getting out the door and we find this Phoebe flapping around the front porch. It lands on a nearby bucket. Tide goes over to investigate and it doesn't even move. After a quick "no" and "lie down" to Tide, which he does follow in an obiedient way...good dog, I called the kids to come over quickly and quietly. Not quite as obediently they arrive to find this Pheobe. It certainly was a bit stunned. We decided that it could see us and the boys offered it a finger to rest on so that we could place it "up" out of the reach of cats.
Okay, that spot was hard to find. We did a little searching around and then settled for a spot on our big rocks. While there we fed a few bugs to it. (Need I refer to the note of last week? The Phoebe decided to stay for a bit.)

After searching around for a good branch to shift it to we decided to give it a moment on the birdbath. The boys hurried into the house to grab their nature journals to catch the event on paper. We began to record and the bird flew onto us. Time and again. Once on a shoulder. Another time on the paper. Again to an arm
Even to land on the dog! Stay still Tide, there's a good dog.
Phoebe did decide to fly away to a tree after we returned it's little weightless body to the birdbath for at least the 6th time.

What fun! I'm certain that not all of our nature journals will involve such active and willing participants!

~Rachel