Bird Watching Class

Yesterday I attended a bird watching class given through my city's Recreation Center. I was lounging around when I got up and my son came into the room with his pair of binoculars. I immediately remembered that my class started at 8am! I love how God sends me gently reminders.

At any rate, I grabbed my binoculars and my daughters bird guide and headed off to class. I couldn't find the directions on line and wound up having to call the Rec Center for directions so needless to see I was about 10 minutes late! When I arrived the class had just finished introductions and was looking at the first set of birds.

The instructor kept commenting on how he had never seen such activity at this park. I believe it was God answering my prayer to make the class a great experience that would ignite a desire to study birds. :)

The original plan was for me to take the class with the kids, but they were not old enough. So I decided to go and see how it was done and then bring the information home for us to use as a part of our studies. It was so funny to see how I was the youngest person in this class. I think the person closest to my age had to be in their late 50's! I love it when this happens because then I have such a vast amount of knowledge to draw upon.

We walked the trails through the park and saw woodpeckers, and warblers. I think I saw more cardinals than I have ever seen in my life. There were blue jays in the tops of the trees. I saw more mockingbirds than I care to count. :) The instructor pointed out KingFishers and a few other birds that I don't remember off hand. Next time I take the class (yes I plan to take it again) I will take a small notebook to write down the species.

My instructor had an ipod with him. Now this day in age that shouldn't be odd except that he must be over 70 years old and it didn't have any music on it, only bird sounds!! As we moved up the trail he would play the sound of the bird he expected to be in that area to get them to come up. And then he kept making this little bird sound with his mouth. How exciting! Who knew I could have so much fun watching birds. I see a bird unit study coming up very soon!