Field Ornithology at King Elementary

Well, the school year is winding down and I am trying to catch up with blogging about my school visits. I did my annual bird survey at King Elementary in Warwick on June 1. Here is what we found.

The weather was hot, not the best birding conditions, but we still found 29 species of birds. Six species were observed by all three classes. Mrs. Flynn’s class was in the field from about 9:20 to 10:00. The temperature was in the mid 80’s with slight haze in the sky and no wind. Mrs. Shoock’s class started looking for birds at about 1:00 and ended at about 1:45. The temperature was in the low 90’s with a strong breeze from the West and a hazy sky. Mrs. Boccia’s class looked for bird from about 2:20 to 3:00 The temperature was in the mid 90’s, very humid, sky with complete high altitude haze and slight breeze from the West.

Here is the total list of birds seen. I have put a letters after each species to indicate which classes observed or heard that bird.

Black Vulture (B, F, S)

Turkey Vulture (B, F, S)

Sharp-shinned Hawk (S)

Coopers Hawk (B)

Red-tailed Hawk (B)

Chimney Swift (B)

Downy Woodpecker (F)

Eastern Phoebe (F)

Eastern Kingbird (B)

Blue Jay (B, S)

American Crow (F, S)

Tree Swallow (S)

House Wren (B, S)

Eastern Bluebird (B, F, S)

Wood Thrush (F)

American Robin (B, F)

Gray Catbird (B, F, S)

European Starling (F)

Cedar Waxwing (B, F)

Yellow Warbler (B, S)

Common Yellowthroat (B)

Chipping Sparrow (B, F, S)

Song Sparrow (S)

Rose-breasted Grosbeak (F)

Red-winged Blackbird (B, F, S)

Brown-headed Cowbird (B)

Baltimore Oriole (F, S)

Purple Finch (F, S)

American Goldfinch (S)

It was exciting to see so many birds even though we were looking for birds during the hottest time of mid-day. The best time to look for birds would be early morning and I am sure if we were to survey birds around the school at that time we might get an additional 5 to 10 more species.

I think every school should establish a yearly list of birds observed or heard at their school. Additional bird studies could be conducted at school, including setting up bird feeders and conducting a feeder watch, and building, setting up and monitoring nest boxes. When students do animal reports they could be encouraged to do reports on birds that live around the school, incorporating their own observations of those birds in their reports.