This week's featured t-shirt is the Women's American Apparel T-Shirt shown below featuring nine Birdorable birds that can be found at back yard feeders in the Northeast of the United States. Represented are: Tufted Titmouse; American Goldfinch; White-throated Sparrow; Rose-breasted Grosbeak; Hairy Woodpecker; Eastern Towhee; Red-breasted Nuthatch; Baltimore Oriole; and Dark-eyed Junco. Pick from dozens of different t-shirt styles for men, women and children and make it your own by moving the design around, changing the background color or adding your own text or images. This makes a fun gift idea for anyone that loves birds and especially for people who love to feed their feathered visitors!
Contributing to citizen Science projects helps our collective knowledge, but it also helps us as individuals learn. We'd like to highlight some citizen science projects in which families can participate. If you know of a project that we could highlight on our blog, please YardMap is a citizen science mapping project that can help you learn more about the birds that visit your yard, and how to attract more. Participating in the project also helps scientists as they study how birds adapt to disturbed habitats.
YardMap is a project from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Participants identify their yard and then map it out, indicating types of habitat found. Using colors and shapes, items like lawn, grass, trees, and more can be marked. Bird baths, brush piles, and other objects can also be placed, to give a very clear picture of the type of habitat found in the yard. Finally, participant bird sightings are linked in via eBird. The YardMap site is full of information on how different suburban habitats impact bird populations, and how participants can help birds by making changes or additions to their yards. YardMap is social, too, with a community forum for sharing pictures and stories.
This is a fun and educational year-round family-friendly project that has the added benefit of helping scientists better understand bird habits in your neighborhood! Visit the YardMap site to learn more and get started!
Contributing to citizen Science projects helps our collective knowledge, but it also helps us as individuals learn. We'd like to highlight some citizen science projects in which families can participate. If you know of a project that we could highlight on our blog, please let us know!
The 16th annual Great Backyard Bird Count will take place from Friday, Feburary 15th through Monday, February 18th. Participation is free and anyone in the world can contribute! Here is a what is involved, taken from the official GBBC website:
"The Great Backyard Bird Count is an annual 4-day event that engages bird watchers of all ages in counting birds to create a real-time snapshot of where the birds are.
Participants tally the number of individual birds of each species they see during their count period. They enter these numbers on the GBBC website."
The annual count helps scientists understand what is happening with bird populations during a specific period of time each winter. This "snapshot" of current bird activity is monitored over time to look for population trends. Results from previous counts can be seen by participants and scientists alike. This is a great citizen science project for birdwatchers of all ages! Data entry is easily accomplished via the GBBC site; younger birdwatchers may need help with keeping and entering count information.
Learn more about this project and how you can participate by visiting the Great Backyard Bird Count website.
Have you participated in the GBBC before? Will you participate this year?
If you think our Birdorable birds are cute as adults, what about when they are babies? Below are some baby photos (shared via Flickr) of the American Goldfinch. American Goldfinches breed relatively late in the summer, starting in June or July, or even into August. Females build a cup-shaped nest lined with soft material and lashed to tree branches with spider silk. Clutch size is from 2 to 7 eggs and the babies fledge about two weeks after hatching.
feeding baby goldfinch by kalenewallin
FEED ME!! by missgingersnap
Feed me! by Doug Greenberg
Pretty cute, right? Be sure to check out our (adult) Birdorable American Goldfinch t-shirts & gifts!
If you think our Birdorable birds are cute as adults, what about when they are babies? Here at Chez Birdorable we were lucky to have a nesting family of American Robins in our front yard. The babies fledged earlier this week. American Robins will have two to three broods per season. Females choose the nesting site and build the nest themselves, using dead grass, mud, and other materials. Typically four eggs are laid, although the nest in our front yard had just three. You can learn more about American Robin nesting behavior at Cornell's NestWatch. Below are some baby photos of 'our' robin babies and some other baby American Robin pictures shared via Flickr.
Three "Robin's Egg Blue" eggs were laid in our front yard nest.
Two of the eggs hatched about two weeks later.
Here are 'our' babies at 6 days old.
This is one of the babies just over a week later, about to fledge.
This baby branched out before finally leaving the nest at 2 weeks of age.
A recently-fledged baby robin, taken by
birdspazz who blogs
here.
A recently-fledged baby robin, taken by
birdspazz who blogs
here.
Pretty cute, right? Be sure to check out our (adult) Birdorable American Robin t-shirts & gifts!
