A Round-up of Bird Study Resources

We are studying birds with our upper elementary student. Again. Because she is fascinated. You can read about what we did a couple of years ago and see the resources we used that year on the post about birds.

This year, we are going more in depth about the different birds, habitats, migration, anatomy, and all the other stuff. We have pulled all the bird books we have one the shelves and are reading through them or the parts of them that pertain to birds. I have pulled the DVDs we have and have bookmarked things on Netflix and Amazon. We have a ton of material to cover this year!

Some of these links are to product reviews that I have done. Others are to blog posts that I have written in regards to the item. One is an affiliate link; it is marked as such.

Picture Books:

• Red Knot: A Shorebird’s Incredible Journey by Nancy Carol Willis
• The Robins in Your Backyard by Nancy Carol Willis
• Look Up! Bird-watching in Your Own Backyard by Annette LeBlanc Cate
• A Backyard Birding Adventure: What’s In Your Yard? by Kermit Cummings
• The Bird Alphabet Book by Jerry Pallotta
• The Penguin Book: Birds in Suits by Dr. Mark Norman

Field Guides:

• The Sibley’s Field Guide To Birds of Western North America, written and illustrated by David Allen Sibley
• Texas Birds: A Folding Pocket Naturalist’s Guide to familiar species
• Birds of Central Texas: A Guide to Common and Notable Species
• Favorite Audubon Birds of America with Introduction and Commentaries by Roger Tory Peterson
• Identifying and Feeding Birds (a BirdWatcher’s Digest book) by Bill Thompson III

Science Curriculum Books:

• Apologia’s Flying Creatures – lessons 1-6
• Christian Nature Readers Level 4 – chapters 2-9
• The Usborne Complete First Book of Nature – pages 2-24
• Creation Club Idea Book: Experiencing Nature with Children of All Ages at Home, School, Camp, or Church by Constance H. Crossman – pages 25-40
• What’s That Bird? from Memoria Press
• CrossWired Science (affiliate link) – They have a short study unit on birds called Mighty Feathers. It is supposed to include around 30 hours of work if we do it all.

DVDs/movies/videos:

• Flight: the genius of birds (from Illustra Media)
• Wild America – season 2 is all about birds (part of Amazon Prime Video at the time of this writing)
• Super Nature Wild Flyers (on Netflix at the time of this writing)
• Beak & Brain: Genius Birds From Down Under (on Netflix at the time of this writing)
• Bird Brain by Nova (on Netflix at the time of this writing)
• Birders (on Netflix at the time of this writing)
• Dancing With the Birds (coming to Netflix but not yet there at the time of this writing)
• Birds of the Backyard (on Amazon Prime Video at the time of this writing)
• Nature: Season 4 Episode 3 – on ostrich, emu and the rhea (on Amazon Prime Video at the time of this writing)
• Hummingbirds, narrated by David Attenborough (on Amazon Prime Video at the time of this writing)
• First Flight: A Mother Hummingbird’s Story (on Amazon Prime Video at the time of thie writing)
• Audubon – a video that combines a biography of Audubon, the man’s art, and live shots of the birds that correspond to his drawings (on Amazon Prime Video at the time of this writing)

Other:

• A Charm of Goldfinches And Other Wild Gatherings: Quirky Collective Nouns of the Animal Kingdom by Matt Sewell
• A Nest For Celeste by Henry Cole (I don’t own this book but it looks good and includes a lot of information about Audubon and his apprentice and his artwork) – read more about it on a friend’s blog)

The more I look, the more I find to explore and learn about. We are spending a bit of time on Friday afternoons at the Arboretum here locally and seeing which birds we can see. Hopefully, we can find a good place to settle in and do some sketching.

I am really enjoying this unit and I think so is Miss J. If you know of additional resources that might fit in, please leave a comment with it below. There is always room for more, right?

Blessings,
Lori, At Home.

Tagged: animals, science