Nature Sketchbook

We found a dead bird in the front yard recently.  It had obviously flown into the window and perished.  The kids were pretty excited about this nature find, Pookie especially.  She spent a long time observing the bird and kept saying, "I've never seen a real bird this close before!"

My sister (who was here visiting for the week) whipped up a little sketch book for Pookie and then the two of them settled down, pencils in hand and proceeded to sketch the bird.

I was surprised to find that, a half hour later, Pookie was still contentedly sketching the bird.  It was the first observant drawing that had ever done and she was really enjoying it.  She really took her time examining the bird and adding all the details to her drawing.

A few days later, I started searching online bird identification guides in the hopes of naming our mystery bird.  Every time I settled on a bird, Pookie was quick to point out why it couldn't be that bird.  "No, it had spots here, remember? No, it was all brown here, remember?" No its eyes were yellow, remember?" she kept asking me.  And no, sadly, I didn't remember.  Without the pics I'd taken, I would never have been able to identify the bird.

We finally determined that our bird was a Brown Thrasher.

I wanted to keep the bird around for its skeleton, but sadly something took off with it during the night.

I think I'm going to make Pookie a larger nature sketchbook.

And I think I'd better make one for me too!