Bird Studies

Max's friend Margaret has gotten into "bird studies", as she calls it, and Max is now interested in it too, so he wanted a pair of binoculars. At his kids birthday party he had received a duplicate toy, and yesterday we finally went to Target to do an exchange. With the return gift card he was able to get not only the binoculars, but the other thing he has recently wanted, a kids toy cell phone that flips open. Several days ago I, foolishly, let Max and Emmett play with my cellphone, and since then they keep wanting to play with it - my old cellphone, which didn't flip open, just wouldn't do. I can't say I blame them.

The "National Geographic"-branded binoculars are self-focusing and seem to work pretty well. They came with a pocket bird guide that shows about 12 different birds. This morning Max, Emmett and Mommy set out on their first bird-spotting trek, this time just up the street. They spotted two birds from the guide, a robin and a sparrow. In this picture you see Max marking their finds in the pocket bird guide. It's fortuitous that Mom-Mom mentioned Mariner's Point in the comments on my last blog entry, as I seem to recall she said this was a good bird watching spot. We are going to have to make a trip there soon, perhaps toting a better bird guide with us.