Fern Michonski / Fern’s Music
Pre-School Music Education Expert: The Children’s Advocate for Love and Kindness, Inspiring Creativity and Joy.
January 9, 2013—Feeding the Birds. 
In the past I have written about the importance of pets in the lives of children. I do believe that having a pet offers many benefits for children, but the reality is not everyone is able to have a pet. The alternative is caring for the birds that live outside your window.
My parents always had a bird feeder in the back yard and fed the wild birds. It delighted all of us. Mom kept a book about birds in a drawer right beside the kitchen window and it was great fun to suddenly discover a “new” bird at the feeder that none of us had seen before. Together we would flip through the pages of the bird book until we found a picture of the bird we were watching out our window. This experience has remained with me to this day. I love to feed the birds and marvel at their beauty, up close. Together with my parents I learned about cardinals, chickadees, nuthatches, the tufted titmouse, downy woodpeckers and the list goes on, including hummingbirds in the spring-summer months. These little creatures bring much joy to all us and the added benefit is their beautiful songs.
I suggest you get yourself a bird feeder and make all of our winged friends from nature part of your family. Together with your children, learn about the birds we share this world with. You can also read through the bird book and learn about birds that do not live in our area and discover why they don’t. You can encourage your children to draw pictures of the birds they learn about.
If you don’t have a bird feed, another option if you have any snow in your back yard, is to make a snowman. Make his eyes out of nuts, his nose from a carrot, and put a glove full of bird seed on the end of his stick arm. That happy snowman will feed the squirrels, birds and other creatures from the woodlands while you watch from the warmth of your home.
Maybe you don’t have a pet inside your home, but there are plenty of them outside of your home, just waiting to be loved!