Backyard Bird Count

Collage from the 2013 Big Backyard Bird Count

Wow!  We had a great time counting birds during the Big Backyard Bird Count!  On Saturday afternoon, we counted 42 birds in just 15 minutes!  We had a flock of 17 Egyptian geese fly over our house and 11 Cedar waxwings roosted in a tree above us.  In addition, we had yellow American goldfinch, black and white chickadees, red cardinals, blue jays, doves, downey woodpeckers, and a robin redbreast.  It was great!

The photo collage at the top of this post shows some of the birds that we saw in our yard.  We saw birds at our feeders.  We saw birds flying overhead.  We even saw a bird taking a bath in our birdbath!

American Goldfinch taking a bath

The biggest bird that we saw was a marsh hawk soaring high overhead.  The smallest bird that we saw was a tiny hummingbird.

After we counted the birds, we entered our numbers online on the Big Backyard Bird Count website.  Our numbers will help scientists to learn about birds that come to our yard.  We try to be part of the Big Backyard Bird Count every year.

We hope that you learned a lot about birds during the Big Backyard Bird Count.  If you would like to learn more, we found some great sites for you to enjoy.

Here are some great links to coloring books on feeder birds:

• http://www.birds.cornell.edu/bbimages/PDFs/ColoringBook.pdf
• http://projectwildbird.org/pics/ColorMe%20coloring%20book.pdf
• http://files.dnr.state.mn.us/publications/volunteer/young_naturalists/bird_color/bird_color.pdf
• Birds of Arkansas:  http://www.birds.cornell.edu/bbimages/PDFs/ColoringBook.pdf
• Birds of Texas:  http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/publications/pwdpubs/media/pwd_bk_p4000_0038.pdf