Brown Birds

I haven’t blogged for awhile. I hope you missed me! Once in awhile, life comes at me a little too fast and I just have to try to survive. I had one of those weeks, and then immediately after that we went on a much anticipated trip, but I’ll post about that later this week after I sort through a few hundred pictures. I’ll just give you a teaser now to say that we identified 80 species of birds in three days. What fun!

For now I’m going to post about the Outdoor Hour Bird Challenge that we did earlier, but I just hadn’t posted about it yet. This challenge was basically about brown birds: House Sparrows, House Wrens and Mourning Doves (all of which we saw on our trip, by the way.) We didn’t get any pictures of Mourning Doves, but we got pictures of the two others plus an extra sparrow.

I’ve never seen a House Wren around our home. We do have a Winter Wren that visits us some, but I haven’t managed his picture yet. This House Wren picture was taken on our trip this last week. This guy came almost within reaching distance of my daughter. He was nesting somewhere near our campsite. He thrilled in serenading us, and we couldn’t help but enjoy.

While we were watching and listening to this little guy, we talked about how typically the birds with bright and beautiful feathers are not the ones with beautiful songs and vice versus. There are exceptions, but it seems to be the general rule. This is actually a good life lesson for us. (Especially for adults, I think.) We often see others who are so talented in this or that and we feel a bit jealous because we aren’t, but God has given us each talents and we need to cultivate what God has given us and stop comparing ourselves to others. I’m quite positive that this little wren has never worried that he doesn’t have bright feathers to show off.

I took these two pictures of the House Sparrow at a rest stop on the way back from one of the trips that I’ve made recently to see my family. I kind of thought it was fun to watch him do the dust bath in the bottom picture. Now this bird doesn’t really have bright feathers or a beautiful song, so he probably has reason to complain, but not really. He is one of the few privileged birds to have been mentioned in the Bible and by Jesus Himself, when Jesus said that He’s watching out for each and every sparrow. Once again a great life lesson. Even if we think we are not important to anybody, at least we can know that we are important to Jesus and He’s watching us with His tender, loving, care.

This is a White-Crowned Sparrow. My husband took this picture on the same trip as the previous sparrow, but at my parents’ house. (With all of the travel that we’ve done in the last six weeks, a lot of our nature study and a lot of our learning in general has taken place away from home.) I just think this guy is so cute all fluffed up like he is. I think it was taken in the early morning and the birds seem to fluff up more then. Maybe it helps keep them warm.

I let the kids choose one bird to do their nature journal entry on. Here they are:

House Wren by Zippy (age 9)

House Sparrow by JD Boy (age 6)