Timely Thrasher

Today, Second Daughter and I read about the Brown Thrasher in The Burgess Bird Book for Children. A few hours later, I watched a pair them outside the window, one of which was digging in the leaves and earth, throwing bits of debris all over.

2017 February and March Bird Lists

American Dipper in Wyoming, not Kansas

We have recently acquired a stand for more bird feeders and have been enjoying the increased traffic outside our kitchen windows. We added a little finch feeder (like these) and a suet feeder. (The bird bath, however, blew away within a day or two in the our breezy Kansas country.) Second Daughter has also been delightedly choosing recipes from Cooking for the Birds.

Here are some of the bird sightings we've had:

February

• the ubiquitous red-tailed hawk
• red-bellied woodpecker
• blue jay
• cardinal
• house finch
• house sparrow
• song sparrow
• white-crowned sparrow (These are usually seen in brushy areas adjacent to open country rather than a backyard bird feeder, but you can apparently attract them if you keep the areas near your house brushy and wild, as we have done.)
• Harris's sparrow
• ruby-crowned kinglet
• Eastern meadowlark (only heard near home; but spotted along the roadside)

March - much of the same and also...

• horned lark (wandering the yard, not at our feeder)
• red-winged blackbirds
• robins (usually in our backyard rather than the feeder)
• Northern mockingbird
• Eastern bluebird
• downy woodpecker (at Grammy's house)
• purple finch (along the roadside)
• goldfinch (within a day of putting up our finch feeder)
• golden eagle (a regular though unusual sight in March along a bit of road we traveled regularly)
• common grackle

We always see a few bluebirds in the spring but they haven't stuck around. I'm contemplating installing a bluebird house or two over the winter so we might be able to attract some to nest next year.

Don't go bird watching in Kansas without The Guide to Kansas Birds and Birding Hotspots, one of my favorite books! (Our library has lots of copies for local folks.)

My Favorite Picture Books: And Then It's Spring

And Then It's Spring by Julie Fogliana with illustrations by Erin E. Stead

This is one of the very few books I came across in a bookstore before seeing it at the library or online. I was immediately attracted to the title and the cover. The book delivered wonderfully. It's a quiet simple tale in which nothing much happens. We wait. The seeds are planted and we wait, surveying the brown countryside, hoping the seeds will sprout, that spring will really come.

The boys stays busy as he waits. He stomps in rain puddles. He plants other seeds, hangs a bird feeder, hangs a tire swing. Always, though, he returns to check on his seeds. In one cutaway, we see the earth beneath the seeds, teeming with life awaiting spring. On my favorite spread, the boy imagines bears tearing up his garden (because bears can't read the signs).

A number of other people have remarked that this is a book about patience, and I suppose it is, but for me the overwhelming thought as I read it was "wonder." The text inspires us to wonder: How can brown be "a hopeful, very possible sort of brown?" How can brown have "a greenish hum that you can only hear if you put your ear to the ground and close your eyes?"

Perhaps, later this year, I'll see my children lying with their ears to the ground, their eyes closed, breathing softly to listen for the hum.

A Comment on Charlotte Mason's Philosophy

Charlotte Mason emphasized the importance of children experiencing nature in all kinds of weather, including the rain and mud of spring. In theory, I agree with her completely.

In practice, though, I'd just like to point out that Ms. Mason did not have to do the laundry, mop the floors, or shampoo the carpet when everyone came back inside.