Awesome Day With 8 Year Old Nephew (1 Viewer)

I had to "watch" my 8 year old nephew today for about 3 hours, A year ago I would beat my head against the wall if I had to do this as he was quite the wild child (and me not having any kids that wide-open behavior was like a dental drill!) He has settled down quite a bit though and shows a high degree of intelligence toward learning WHEN MOTIVATED.

Friday afternoon he and my brother came by for a few minutes and he (my nephew) remarked about all my feeders-something to the effect of "Uncle David-you really DO like watching birds don't you!" I told him I did and he asked several more questions. I still wasn't too excited as I know his attention span is measured in seconds.

I then went by THEIR house later and he met me at the door with his dad's bins around his neck (a set of Minox 10x44 porros I gave my brother as a present a few years back). It was cute but I just figured he was mirroring me or just trying to be funny. As the evening wore on though, he kept wanting to use them even inside the house so I taught him the proper way, STARTING with "always put the strap around your neck first" and going then to focusing and setting eye relief. For a hyper 8 year old, he actually did listen and did pretty well. He "found" the exit pupil "dots of light" and was intrigued by them. After that we had to work on "keeping-little-fingers-off-any-glass"... :king:

Seeing an opportunity to save a child from this electronic device world :t: I decided later that night to give him a cheap pair of Meade bins my wife and I bought a few years ago to plant the seed... Also...if he can take care of these I will buy him a better pair in a couple years.

Today I picked him up from his dad/my brother (a single parent) while he attended an out-of-town meeting. I brought the Meades to give him and I had my bins but forgot a field guide. I didn't even MENTION a field guide, thinking we would just informally "look" at birds. It was kind of funny because we started ticking birds off and then (in a "from-the-mouths-of-babes" moment) he said, "Uncle David-they ought to have a book with all kinds of birds in it you could look them up in". o I drove us back to my house and got the latest Stokes manual. Before we even got out of the drive he was looking birds up in our and the neighbor's yards.

We then went to our county landfill (closed but I have a gate opener since the Sheriff's Firearms Range is there). This is a heck of a spot for wild turkeys and there is even a peacock (obviously escaped from captivity) that graze there with the turkeys. We seen some turkeys but missed the peacock. We then went to some State facilities I often "bird" at, and seen quite a few. I think he wore the ink off the pages of the Stokes manual! He got the drift of how to use it even if he made some bad IDs...a couple he seen here in the dead of winter in the NC mountains were Western Scrub Jays and Vaux's Swifts. :king:

We made positive IDs on turkeys, crows, turkey vultures, robins, doves, mockingbirds, wrens, cardinals, an unknown woodpecker, bluebirds, and even a brown creeper. We seen probably twice that many but didn't ID them positively or at all (silhouettes in the distance).

All in all though it was an awesome "quality time" kind of day. :t:

Let's hope that's him hooked!...good and proper. :t:

Oh! That's such a lovely tale David.

I do hope he'd like to have another day out with you. It sounds like you've got him started off in the right way. Well done.

KenM said:

Let's hope that's him hooked!...good and proper. :t:

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Sounds like you've gone one better than the old Jesuit saying David: "Give me a child until he is seven and I'll give you the man". We could change it to: "Let me look after an eight year old and I'll give you the birder" :t:
It doesn't always work though, my youngest son's first uttered sentence was "I hate birds", I must have been trying too hard :C

Lucky boy to have such a great uncle!

We had another great birding day yesterday. :t:

I had him for about 5 hours while his dad attended an out-of-town meeting.

I picked him up and ran back by my house and we checked my feeders. We had a usual smattering of "frequent flyers" on the feeders and on the ground:
Tufted Titmouse
Northern Cardinal
Mourning Doves
Chickadees
Wrens
Robins

The highlight of this session though was a red-bellied woodpecker that made about three runs on the feeder. He wouldn't stay long but my nephew did get to see him clearly from about 40 feet and through binocs.

I had gotten information of a bald eagle's nest that could be seen from a private road in a gated community under development near a small local lake. I myself have only a very limited history of seeing eagles in the wild, so this was at the top of my list. On the way, we passed a juvenile turkey vulture sitting on the side of the road near some roadkill (surprised he didn't fly but he didn't) so we slowed down and he got to see it closely also.

Being one of "today's youth" however, I noticed the "electronic device" came out...in the form of a small tablet he started playing "Candy Crush" or something similar on. I didn't mind as long as we were just driving between locations but as we got close to the the eagle's nest location, I told him, "Okay put that away-this is REAL LIFE-we need to be looking for wildlife." He did without too much grumbling.

We found the eagle's nest and watched from a good distance while one (likely the female?) sat on the nest. We could see her head through binocs so we can count the sighting but never got to see her (or her mate) fly in or out. While that would have been awesome, NO DAY with a confirmed bald eagle sighting (in my area at least) is a "bad" birding day! :t:

We then got some lunch and went to another local lake on the opposite end of the county. Being mid-day, nothing was flying for the most part. We did see some large water bird that I couldn't ID (large, gull-like wings and slow gull-like wing beats, flying high...was not a heron though...) as it was at a long distance and high, with angled sunlight on it, making it a mere silhouette to me. We did see some eastern bluebirds and goldfinches (which HE saw, and made correct IDs on!)

Ironically, he was wanting to go to another place after this but it was time to go meet his dad.

I'm thinking I am going to get him a feeder and large bag of seed, and I have already ordered a small kid's field guide for him. Also, I am going to take him to the Carolina Raptor Center soon (which I enjoy but I can tell my wife it's for him...) :king:

http://www.carolinaraptorcenter.org/

You had a great day out, didn't you David. And your newphew seems to be coming on great guns.

Wondering if you unID'd big gull-like bird could be an Osprey?

EDIT: I've just seen my mistype above... LOL I've invented a new word which seems to perfectly describe your nephew (perhaps it'll stick)

Hmmm...I'll see if I can find some video of Ospreys flying. I watched one last summer for quite a while (but a bit lower and closer) and even seen it carrying a fish back to the nest. This birds flight didn't make me think of that but who knows. I fully admit to being a rookie birdwatcher so anything's possible. This bird's wings seemed too "pointy" for an Osprey though...

Looked at some videos...I don't know. Could be but still not sure. Have to go back today I guess...!

I will say that whatever I seen was flying with a constant wing movement albeit slow. No soaring.

There's loads of Osprey videos in BFTV, David, which you can access easily through the Opus article, just scroll down to the bottom of the article.

When I first started to see Ospreys when they returned to Scotland years ago, they always reminded me of large gulls, especially at a distant height.

yes i like the word newphew delia it might catch on

Looking at one range map we would only be in the "migration" range for Osprey. I live about 300 miles from the coast where I KNOW they are.

I really am stumped. Went back today with 10x bins (Kowa Genesis 10x44) and I'm sure this bird is a gull but I couldn't get close enough to make a positive ID. My gut says Herring Gull (and the range maps would support this) but our local bird club has never listed one in this area, and I'm DEFINITELY not the guy to confirm a new sighting for the area. Granted, I did see on their website a confirmed Western Tanager at another park only a few miles away in December, with photograph! Like Owen Wilson said in The Big Year "How'd THAT THING get here?" o

What a delightful thread this is David. I just came across it. Don't know why it took me so long. A good read.

Thanks for the comments everyone.

I also enjoy his "mouths-of-babes" remarks on some subjects. As I mentioned in the first post, he had never seen a field guide to my knowledge but made a remark about the need for "book" with "all the birds in it"; yesterday he made another that made me grin. I had the newest Stokes guide (which can double for an impact weapon!) but I also threw in a simple little "common birdfeeder birds" guidebook which has about 80 birds in it. I thought it might be better for his small hands and might cover MOST of what we may see on a simple outing. He was going to look up the turkey vulture in the small one and I told him "That is probably not going to be in there..." and later he was going to look up the eagle, and again I said "That one probably wont be in there either..." He closed it quickly and with an almost cute frustrated look said, "Uncle David, if we are going to have a book then ALL of the birds need to be in it!"

o

Sounds like you have been having some wonderful bonding times with him.

David in NC said:

... He closed it quickly and with an almost cute frustrated look said, "Uncle David, if we are going to have a book then ALL of the birds need to be in it!"

o

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Smart boy!

Looking forward to tomorrow...going to get my nephew again.

Thinking about going to a local lake where I know there to be a Belted Kingfisher nest near a boating access. If that doesn't work, I know a park where I've seen a Belted Kingfisher on a river. Will only have about 2.5 hours tomorrow though. I am thinking I will also loan him a good set (probably my Vortex Viper HDs IF they'll fit his IPD, which I think they will) of bins for tomorrow.

I also have him a small field guide and several birdfeeders for him to take home... o

Well Saturday was a bust. :-C

We have had a LOT of rain and Saturday was the first really clear day in a long time, and I really thought it would be a great day but it was a bust. There was just nothing flying to speak of. We missed the Kingfisher and didn't have much time to look for anything else.

We DID see some kind of hawk (likely) crossing a narrow earthen dam. I was pointing out a water intake for a hydro plant from our car and he yelled "Eagle!" (I'd told him we MIGHT see an eagle as there is one nesting pair on the area so that may be why it was on his mind) and I looked up and it flew from the NON-WATER side of the dam across the road in front of us. It wasn't an eagle but some sort of hawk...I only got a split second to see it as it flared in front of us and went over the roof of the car out of sight.

David in NC said:

Well Saturday was a bust. :-C

We have had a LOT of rain and Saturday was the first really clear day in a long time, and I really thought it would be a great day but it was a bust. There was just nothing flying to speak of. We missed the Kingfisher and didn't have much time to look for anything else.

We DID see some kind of hawk (likely) crossing a narrow earthen dam. I was pointing out a water intake for a hydro plant from our car and he yelled "Eagle!" (I'd told him we MIGHT see an eagle as there is one nesting pair on the area so that may be why it was on his mind) and I looked up and it flew from the NON-WATER side of the dam across the road in front of us. It wasn't an eagle but some sort of hawk...I only got a split second to see it as it flared in front of us and went over the roof of the car out of sight.

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Great thread David.

Sounds as if the next purchase will be a camera for him?