Bird Studies ~ Feeder Observation Graphing and Range Mapping

For the past two days we’ve been spending some quality time observing the birds at our feeders.  Why you ask?  Well, other than the obvious reason that we really enjoy watching the birds…we’ve used our observations for Math and Geography of course!!  I’ve made up three spreadsheets to help with this (you can click on the images below to download the files if you’re interested):

         

 

The first one is a Bird Feeder Observation Graph, the second a Bird Feeder Observation Graph with Color Legend, and the third a Bird Feeder Observation Tally Sheet.

What we did first was put our tally sheets onto a clipboard and sat for about 30 or 45 minutes observing the feeders and writing down all the different bird types that we saw onto our lists, along with the highest number observed at one time of each bird.  For example, say we saw three (3) American Goldfinches at one time; we immediately wrote the name and three tallies on our sheet.  If five minutes later we saw some American Goldfinches again, only this time there was five (5) all at once, we added two more tallies to our sheet by their name.  This is the only "best guess" way to determine how many you had at the feeder that day without duplication.

After finishing our tally, we then transferred the data onto the graph sheets.  There are two graph sheets to choose from, whether you want to put the type of bird on the graph, or put the type of bird in a color legend below it.

Also on the graph is a place to mark the observer’s name, date, time of observation, weather, and temperature.  We plan on doing this several times over the next couple of weeks and then comparing our data to see if there are any patterns in the types and numbers of birds and the weather.

For Geography, they each chose a bird that we had seen at the feeders that morning and read a bit about it and then mapped it’s range on a blank map of the United States.

These two maps were for the Carolina Wren and Northern Cardinal.  Both of these birds’ ranges were "year-round"; however if they hadn’t been we would have marked the varying seasons with different colors.  We also plan on doing this at least a few times over the span of our studies.

Now if we can just figure out what type of "bird" this is?!!   LOL