Bird & Nature Blog

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Teaching Outside: Outdoor Routines

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Teaching Outside: Outdoor Routines

In our last blog post, we discussed some tips for getting ready to take your students and lessons outside this coming school year. Now it’s time to think about the importance of creating routines for your students in your outdoor classroom, and we will leave you with some of our favorite ideas for routine-building activities.

Establishing outdoor routines with your students can help them engage in the natural world and provide structure for outdoor lessons. Providing consistent structure helps ease the transition out of and back into your indoor environment. Students will know what to expect from their time outside, and they will learn how to guide themselves from one activity to the next.

We will also include some ideas for transferring these routines to an online learning format as many schools are starting the school year virtually. Nature is a great way to connect with kids even when you cannot all be outside together, and you can set up outdoor learning routines for your students to do as they are able off-screen and at their own homes.

Madison Audubon photo

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Tips for Tricky Bird IDs: Shorebird Edition!

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Identifying birds is hard. No matter the species, no matter the time of year—it’s a challenge. The right bird but the wrong lighting conditions can fool even an expert birder, but us newbies? Oof, sometimes it feels like we don’t even have a chance.

Every season, it seems like there are new arrivals destined to fool us, again and again. Right now, it’s shorebirds. In the few months that they’ve been gone, it feels like everything that I learned about shorebird ID migrated north with them. And unfortunately, it doesn’t look like my shorebird knowledge made the return trip, so I’ve had to do some studying up!

In this week’s Entryway to Birding blog, I’m going to share some of the most helpful shorebird ID tips I’ve picked up along the way. I’ll also talk through some side-by-side comparisons of some of our most common, yet confusing, shorebirds.

Let’s get started!

Photo by USFWS Northeast Region

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Getting Ready to Teach Outdoors

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Getting Ready to Teach Outdoors

There are a wide-range of benefits to teaching outside, and we are here to help you prepare your students and yourself for the learning that awaits in your natural environment.

The biological realities of living with COVID-19 is pushing our society to rethink and redesign the spaces we inhabit. Practicing outdoor learning can be one resource to draw upon as we change our education system to rely on safe social practices.

Here are some ideas for everyone, in all areas of the education system, to think about before you venture outside with your students.

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A Beginner's Guide to Spotting Scopes

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It’s hard to believe it is already August, but here we are. Fall migration started to pick up in mid-July as shorebirds, our earliest southward migrants, began to arrive. Later this month—likely late or mid-August—we can expect to see some warblers and other migrating passerines come through, so keep your eyes peeled and study up on those fall plumages.

One of the perks of fall migration is just how extended it feels. Spring can come and go in a flash, but fall migration lingers. You might be wondering how you can make the most of it as a beginning birder, and one of the questions that’s likely crossed your mind as you think about fall’s incoming shorebirds and waterfowl is, “Do I need a spotting scope?”

I can’t answer this question for you—only you can decide if it’s worth the investment. But in this week’s blog entry, I will address some things you should consider if you’ve been internally debating this question. I’ll also have some tips for how to make the most of your birding without a scope.

Photo by Caitlyn Schuchhardt

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The Energy 202

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The Energy 202

Please use this link to read a letter that 41 fishing and hunting organizations just sent to Congressional leaders asking that Congress take some immediate and specific steps to substantially increase carbon sequestration and reduce the release of carbon. The actions will also improve and increase wildlife habitat and water quality. Just about all of these steps will also help many, many species of native plants, pollinators, and birds.

For some of these organizations, the letter represents a huge step forward in their public lobbying on the critical need to address our changed climate now.

Topf Wells, Madison Audubon board member and advocacy committee chair

Cover photo by Brenna Marsicek