Outdoor Hour Challenge ~ Winter Series ~ Winter Birds and the Great Backyard Bird Count

Last weekend, Adrienne and I participated in the Great Backyard Bird Count. It was very simple, all we had to do was watch for birds for about fifteen minutes and write down which we saw. We don't have a bird feeder on our yard, but can see our neighbour's from my bedroom window.

Adrienne is much better at me for looking at the details of each bird which helped us identify them!

Here are a few photos taken during our observations. It was early on a cloudy day, so the lighting isn't the best.

After we were done counting the birds over the three days, we decided to pick one and read a bit more about it. We chose the Dark-eyed Junco. We found out that while most juncos migrate south for the winter, it is common to see a few in Ontario during the cold months.  They like to eat the seeds that fall from bird feeders.

The male has the dark slate grey feathers on top, while the female has lighter brown. Both have white belly feathers. 

See the bottom of the post for our list of birds that we submitted.

Great Backyard Bird Count - February 13 to 15, 2010

Mourning Doves: 14

European Starlings: 17

Black Capped Chickadees: 10

House Sparrow: 20

Dark-eyed Junco: 4

We included this information to our Nature Journal along with a Dark-eyed Junco colouring page from the (free printable) Feeder Birds Colouring Book.

This was part of the Outdoor Hour Challenge Winter series (even though we didn't go outside!), more can be found about it at Handbook of Nature Study blog.