It is spring/ summer here in the Cape.
Cape Weavers noisily build nests and raise their chicks in almost every tree in our garden.
Swallows, Wagtails, Sunbirds and Sparrows feed often at our feeder or fly about in the garden.
Charlotte Mason said,
“As soon as he is able to keep it himself, a nature diary is a source of delight to a child.
Every day’s walk gives him something to enter.”
This week we came across a tiny nest in one of our hay bales in the open shed. The bale was low enough for my youngest to easily peer into.
Two tiny eggs were in the small nest.
We were thrilled when a day later, the chicks hatched.
With excited shrieks, the girls ran to tell me.
I grabbed my camera and our new nature study bags.
Quietly we approached.
Keeping our distance we peeped at the fluffy, fragile little birds.
Miss. K whispered a few little whistle calls and both heads popped up with beaks open wide.
I took some photos and we withdrew to see if the mother bird would come feed her babies, but she flitted about in a nearby tree, but wouldn’t come while we were still there.
So, we moved even further away and opened our nature journals and described what we saw.
My 8-year-old drew the picture of the chick and painted her sketch. She and I both studied the photo on the camera to see some details. (Oh the joys of a digital camera! It is so good to zoom in on a photo!)
My 11-year-old sketched her nest and chicks in pencil and then wrote some really detailed observations. She related her experiences with a moving conclusion, “I love those birds!”
What a wonderful time outdoors in summer. God’s creation is truly marvellous!
(Oh, since then, the birds are bigger and have more feathers. We will visit with our nature journals each week and keep notes. It will make a really excellent study.)
What wonderful nature study moments did you all have this summer?
Blessings,
Practical Pages 
Thank you for this inspiring story! Although my two boys love walking with me in our garden or the local Botanical Gardens, we haven’t yet sat down to “study” something and write about it – they are only 2.5 and almost 5 years respectively. The older one does keep an eye on something from time to time that he finds interesting, like the gecko that was injured by our jack russel, or the caterpillars that spun cocoons, but we haven’t put it down in books yet.
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What a wonderful experience for your children to observe-such special moments!
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This is lovely Nadene! Thank you! So inspiring. Can’t wait for spring again!
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That really is wonderful and so sweet.
We’re building up to nature study, but have loved seeing a nest of swallows above a shop in the summer. There is something about their blindness and desperation for food that is fascinating. We stood and watched them ages.
We now live in a first storey flat with an established garden to the front and back – great views for more bird watching, and lets us have some smaller scale nature study close-by. It’s going to be good 🙂
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