The boys did a science project for co-op this fall charting the migration habits of birds that would come through our area. One aspect of the project was to set up three different styles of feeders in our back yard and make a hypothesis as to which feeder would attract the most birds. After consistently observing our feeders for over a week and never spotting even one bird on any of them, we determined that we had either started our project too early or the cool fall weather was taking longer than normal to find us. The birds were obviously doing just fine feeding themselves on the abundance of worms and insects still available to them.

So after our project had taken a different turn (learning why they weren't coming as opposed to how many/what kinds we were feeding) we kind of gave up and forgot about it. This morning, after several days of cooler temperatures, our feeders were finally put to good use! Turns out that the black sunflower seeds in the hanging feeder seem to be the food of choice for the various jays and chickadees that are passing through right now. Even our younger scientists immediately realized that the birds eating from our feeders must mean that the bugs and worms are being chased away by the colder air.

Science experiments that actually make sense (to mommy) joy...