A Coloring Plan for The Burgess Bird Book for Children

The Burgess Bird Book for Children

by Thornton W. Burgess

Mater Amabilis™Level 1A recommends The Burgess Bird Book for Children as one of the books for year 1 (2nd grade) science, a focus on nature study. I tried reading this book to First Son and we made it through most of it but he often found it tedious. First Daughter read it to herself but didn't enjoy it very much.

Second Daughter, though, loves birds and is the best at bird identification in the family. I knew she would love this book, but I also knew she would not want to read it herself. I wanted her to be able to color pictures for each of the birds. There are lots of websites out there with links to all sorts of pictures for each bird in the book. I found these pictures to be troublesome to print because they're all over the internet and, for the same reason, they were often of uneven quality. (Any accomplished bird artists out there? I think you could make good money on a coloring book of the Burgess birds; all you need are line drawings of all the birds in the books in one PDF and a site to sell it.)

Anyway, I thought I could purchase a coloring book that would get me 90% of the birds at a fraction of the hassle and ordered the Peterson Field Guide Coloring Book: Birds.
The main problem with my plan was the unexpected lack of an index in the coloring book. I therefore had to go through and look page by page for each bird. You don't have to, though, because I've typed it up below. This list is only useful if you have a copy of the Burgess Bird Book and this exact Peterson guide; I can't make promises for other Peterson guides because I don't have any others in front of me.

I read one chapter a week to First Daughter, which means this book carried over into the third grade year. (I gave her the option to finish it herself, but she preferred to double up on science for a while.) Each week, she'd find the birds in the guidebook (I gave her the page number) then color it to match the Peterson sticker while I read the chapter. Then she'd narrate for me. With interest and time, we would check a few other resources, too:

• YouTube for videos of the bird (there are some playlists, but I found it easier to just search)
• All About Birds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology (particularly good for listening to the birds)
• The Guide to Kansas Birds and Birding Hot Spots (obviously, choose a guide for your area, but we love this one and use it all the time)

Integrating the Peterson Field Guide Coloring Book: Birds with The Burgess Bird Book for Children

• Chapter 1: house wren p 43
• Chapter 2: English or house sparrow p 55
• Chapter 3: song sparrow, white-throated sparrow, fox sparrow - all on p 64
• Chapter 4: chipping sparrow and tree sparrow on p 63 (no vesper sparrow)
• Chapter 5: bluebird (eastern) p 45, robin on p 47
• Chapter 6: phoebe on p 38 (no least flycatcher)
• Chapter 7: kingbird p 37, great crested flycatcher p 38
• Chapter 8: peewee p 38
• Chapter 9: woodcock p 27, spotted sandpiper on p 25 and 27
• Chapter 10: red-winged blackbird p 56, northern flicker p 36
• Chapter 11: downy and red-headed woodpeckers p 37, hairy woodpecker p 36
• Chapter 12: brown-headed cowbird p 57, Baltimore oriole p 57 and 47
• Chapter 13: orchard oriole p 57, bobolink p 56
• Chapter 14: northern bobwhite p 22, eastern meadowlark p 56
• Chapter 15: chimney swift p 35, tree swallow p 39
• Chapter 16: purple martin p 39, barn swallow p 40
• Chapter 17: American crow p 41, blue jay p 47
• Chapter 18: red-tailed hawk p 20, ovenbird p 52
• Chapter 19: ruffed grouse p 22, common grackle p 57
• Chapter 20: osprey p 19, bald eagle p 21
• Chapter 21: great blue heron p 9, belted kingfisher p 35
• Chapter 22: bank swallow p 39, American kestrel p 22 (sparrow-hawk)
• Chapter 23: common nighthawk p 34 (no whip-poor-will or chuck-wills-widow)
• Chapter 24: yellow warbler p 50, American redstart p 55
• Chapter 25: black and white warbler p 49, yellow-throated warbler p 53, yellow-breasted chat p 55
• Chapter 26: northern parula p 50, magnolia warbler p 50, yellow rumped myrtle warbler p 51
• Chapter 27: gray catbird p 44, cardinal p 47
• Chapter 28: scarlet tanager p 58, rose-breasted grosbeak p 59
• Chapter 29: red-eyed vireo p 49, warbling vireo p 49 (no yellow-throated vireo)
• Chapter 30: brown thrasher p 44, northern mockingbird p 47
• Chapter 31: wood thrush p 44, hermit thrush p 45 (no Wilson's or tawny thrush)
• Chapter 32: indigo bunting p 59, eastern towhee p 62
• Chapter 33: American goldfinch p 61 and 63, purple finch p 60
• Chapter 34: mourning dove p 32, yellow-billed cuckoo p 33
• Chapter 35: ruby-throated hummingbird p 35, loggerhead shrike p 48
• Chapter 36: European starling p 47, cedar waxwing p 48
• Chapter 37: black-capped chickadee p 41 (could also include the Carolina chickadee, same page)
• Chapter 38: common loon p 8, Canada goose p 12
• Chapter 39: brown creeper p 42, white-breasted nuthatch p 42 (red-breasted on p 43)
• Chapter 40: dark-eyed junco p 63 (tree sparrow done earlier)
• Chapter 41: horned lark p 63, snow bunting p 63
• Chapter 42: screech owl p 34
• Chapter 43: red crossbill p 61
• Chapter 44: common redpoll p 62 (no pine grosbeak)
• Chapter 45: great horned owl p 34 (no goshawk)

There are lots of birds left to color now that we're finished with The Burgess Bird Book.  I thought a bunch might be in The Burgess Seashore Book which we already own, but it appears there are only a handful in that book. I plan to let Second Daughter just color the rest of the birds on her own.

This is the copy of The Burgess Bird Book we have, which was pricey at about $20 when I bought it in 2010. I wanted the full color illustrations, which were indeed nice and helped my oldest son focus while we were reading. I think the addition of the Peterson Guide, though, makes the illustrations less important. If I were looking for a copy today, I'd probably get the Dover one above. Be careful about some of the print on demand options as they often have minuscule text, no page numbers, or limited margins. The Dover one has a complete index which includes the common name of the birds as well as the nicknames used in the text.

Links above to Amazon are affiliate links. I received nothing in exchange for this post.