January 15, 2001

Frequency of Cardinal Visits to Feeders  by Sarah and Gwen

Bird Feeder Experiment  by Annie and Ashlie

Poetry

Carolina Wren  by Jack

Owl  by Heather

Little Bird  by Amy

The Robin  by Beth and Emma

The Dream of Flying  by Ryan

Art - Birds

Belted Kingfisher  by Lucas

Tanager  by Haley

Hummingbird  by Danielle

Peregrine Falcon  by Blake

Cedar Waxwing  by Patrick

Art - Imaginary Birds

The Weather Bird  by Anthony

Princess  by Kira

Ryan Wannabe  by Adrian

Giant Penguin  by Benjamin

Belted Kingfisher
Lucas, Grade 5
Ms. Parrott
Bayshore Elementary
N. Fort Myers, FL

Carolina Wren
By Jack, Grade 4
Mrs. D'Agostino
Assumption School
Morristown, NJ

The Carolina Wren flies so high
It flies, it soars through the sky.
It eats insects, spiders, and bugs it sees.
It makes its nest in holes in trees.
It's small and round.
It probably weighs less than a pound.
It has a very pretty song.
Folks enjoy it all day long.
The Carolina Wren is my favorite bird, you know.
And I don't mind telling you so.

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Owl
By Heather, Grade 6
Mrs. White
Brandon Middle School
Virginia Beach, VA

Owl
swift, fast
sitting, watching, screeching
predator, capturer, captured, prey
singing, eating, flying
red, musical
Cardinal

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Little Bird
By Amy, Grade 4
Mrs. D'Agostino
Assumption School
Morristown, NJ

I see a little bird looking straight at me
It's the Tufted Titmouse that I see
With his gray coat, and the tuft on its head,
I look out my window at his beautiful wings spread.
On its flank is a yellow streak,
And there's also a black spot near its beak.
The beautiful Titmouse is small in size
And if you look closely, you'll see its dark eyes
You might see him at the feeder, but he's small, so it's hard,
So watch closely, and he might appear in your back yard.

The Robin
By Beth and Emma, Grade 3
Ms. Conca
Church Street School
White Plains, NY

Really fast
Over the trees
Beautiful
In the air
Nesting in the spring

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The Dream of Flying
By Ryan, Grade 7
Mrs. Smith
Gowana Middle School
Clifton Park, NY

What would it be like to fly
To soar through the sky
To land in a tree
And be able to fly free

To feel the wind ruffling across your skin
So enchanting you could feel it within
What a time it would be
If you could see what a bird can see

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Frequency of Cardinal Visits to Feeders
By Sarah and Gwen, Grade 7
Mr. Posseda
Bloomsburg Middle School
Bloomsburg, PA

Teacher's Note: At the Bloomsburg Middle School in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, Mr. Posseda's 7th grade class was expecting the Northern Cardinal to appear often during their bird observation periods. To their surprise, this common feeder bird was not seen very often. A research experiment was set up by Sarah and Gwen to try and explain this phenomenon. They counted feeder visits by Northern Cardinals in four time periods illustrated in the graph below. From this study, it was shown that this bird did not appear as a frequent visitor during the time the class was observing their feeding stations. Rather, the preferred feeding times for this species were when the students were not in school.

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Bird Feeder Experiment
By Annie and Ashlie, Grade 4
Mrs. Rindy
Robert Frost School
Silverton, Oregon

Introduction

We would like to see if birds prefer a feeder near water or one that is away from the water. We think the birds are going to prefer the one near the water so they can drink and bathe.

Materials and Methods

We made feeders from two empty milk jugs and hung them on the fence. The first was two feet away from the back yard pond. The second feeder was approximately 20 feet away from the same pond. We hung them at the same level. To see which feeder was used more we decided to fill the feeders each with exactly 3 cups of seed and then, after a specific time, measure out how much bird seed was left over.

Results

When we removed the feeders to measure the amount of seed left over, we found that the feeder placed by the pond measured 2 ½ cups of bird seed while the feeder placed further away from the pond had 2 ¾ cups of bird seed left.

Conclusions

We predicted that the feeder by the pond would have more birds eating. We were right. From our study, we could see that more birds did come to the feeder closest to the pond.

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