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February 18, 2006

How to Use Your Webcam for Nature Study

Category: Birds, Internet, Nature Curriculum – Admin – 1:40 pm

Most of the time when I see a scarecrow, it’s either in a backyard garden, or it’s a Halloween lawn decoration.

Here’s something else you can do with that scarecrow. It works really well if you have and old shirt, trousers, hat and gloves that look like what the scarecrow is wearing:

  • Use an old lawn chair and position the scarecrow (headless or not) with its hands in its lap.
  • Place an old cookie sheet in the scarecrow’s lap and position the hands.
  • Fill the cookie sheet with bird seed.
  • If the scarecrow’s hat has a rim, sprinkle bird seed there, too.

    The birds will avoid the scarecrow at first, but after a few days, they will start to eat the seeds.

  • Set up your webcam to observe the scene.
  • Spend a few weeks observing the birds. Make a list:
  • What time of day do the birds come?
  • What kinds of birds visit and when?
  • Can you tell how many different birds visit?
  • After a few weeks, dress like the scarecrow and sit in the lawn chair with the tray of bird seed. How long did you sit there before the birds came?

    How did it feel to have birds land in your lap or on your hat?

    What did you learn about the different birds that visited? How long did the birds come to feed before you got up? Did you put the scarecrow back after you left?


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