Happy National Bird Day!

Today is National Bird Day. I'm pretty sure I've blogged about this before. Click on the link if you want to go to their website. You'll find a lot of interesting things, including how the day got started, what you can do to help birds, events, and other fun activities. There's even a photo contest where you can win a pair of binoculars, a new bird feeder, or copies of the film, The Big Year. I've been wanting to see that. It stars Steve Martin, Jack Black, and Owen Wilson, so you know it has to be funny. The deadline for the photo contest is January 31st, so I better dig through my pictures and see if I took anything worth entering. You can enter up to three pictures.

For school this week, the boys are doing crafts that relate to New Years. Yesterday it was a project we found online called New Year's Peace Doves. Well, as you can see, our doves look anything but peaceful. We started off with good intentions of making pretty, white doves, but then we got a little crazy with the feathers. They were super easy to make though, which is always a plus for my boys. They love crafting, but seem to enjoy it even more when it's simple. So anyway, if you have a little one who wants to celebrate National Bird Day, you might want to make a dove. Of course, you don't have to make a Funky Dove like we did with wild and crazy feathers. I'll probably add string to ours today and hang them in the classroom.

Speaking of birds ... our weather certainly has been for the birds lately. I mean, literally! We've gotten snow here and there, but for the most part, it's been a really unusual winter. I looked at the forecast and it looks like we're due for another week and a half of partially sunny weather with temps in the high 30s and low 40s. I've never seen a winter like this since moving to Montana. It's so strange not to have a least a foot and a half of snow by now. Normally, it starts snowing around November and we don't see the ground until around April. That hasn't been the case this year. Right now it's windy, which explains my headache. It's still dark outside, but as soon as it's light, I'll put out some fresh birdseed for the birds. We still have a lot of birds that don't migrate south like black-capped chickadees, red-breasted nuthatches, and dark-eyed juncos. I've been seeing a lot of downy woodpeckers and northern flickers hanging around the house, too. They're regulars even when we have the nastiest of winters. 

So anyway, I hope everyone enjoys National Bird Day. If you can, leave a little snack out for your local birds, or try to snap a photograph or two of some that you see. I'm so blessed to live in an area with so many amazing birds. I've lived here over five years and it still blows me away to see bald eagles flying over me when I'm just on a trip to the grocery store. I don't think I'll ever tire of seeing them ... I certainly hope not.