Bluebird Festival

Black Hill Regional Park hosted a Bluebird Festival this afternoon, and the rain clouds stayed away just long enough for us to attend.

The girls played a food-sorting game - fruit and berries in the fall/winter; insects in the spring/summer. After sorting the bluebird food, they each got a bluebird Peep (which were so cute!).

Then Julia and Evelyn made bluebird collages on paper plates. Evelyn's bird is flying to its nest, while it appears that Julia's tree and leaves are flying toward the bird...
We listened to some informative picture books about bluebirds, and the girls learned quite a bit about hatchlings changing into fledglings. After story time, we headed back to the craft table. Julia and Evelyn made bluebird nests complete with a momma bird and some (candy) eggs. Evelyn made her bird totally on her own, while Julia needed quite a bit of assistance.

We wrapped up the afternoon by going on a short hike to visit some of the bluebird houses around the nature center. The first birdhouse had tree swallow eggs in it, which was pretty neat. But the main attraction was the second bluebird box - there were baby birds it! The naturalist leading the hike actually took one of the babies out of the nest so we could see it up close. (Meanwhile, the mommy and daddy bluebirds were flying around, keeping an eye on us humans.)

We had a great time at the bluebird festival today. Hopefully we will come back next year!