We watched the Eaglets grow impatient waiting for their mom to return, watched them interact with the mother eagle, and saw them practice flapping their wings.

Here’s some of what we saw:

You can watch the baby eagles by clicking here.  It makes a great virtual field trip.

We’re sharing the recipe here. But if you’d rather not make your own, or if you just want to help a little girl fulfill some of her dreams to study animals in San Diego you can buy some from McKayla in her new store. She is selling Bird Suet to earn money for an educational field trip to the ocean, Sea World and the San Diego zoo.

Here’s How To Make Bird Suet

You will need:

• Small plastic zippered bags
• Mesh bag or suet basket.
• Stove
• Pot
• Stirring Spoon
• Freezer
• 2 cups peanut butter
• 2 cups lard (not shortening)
• 4 cups rolled oats (not quick oats)
• 4 cups cornmeal
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1 cup raisins
• 1 cup bird seed

1. Melt the lard and peanut butter in a pot over low heat. Have a grown-up do that part.

2. Stir in the rest of the ingredients.

3. Scoop the mixture into small zippered bags.

3. Place the bags in the freezer so the suet will harden.

Once the suet has hardened:

1. Remove the suet from one of the bags and place it in the mesh bag or suet basket. We found it easies to cut the bag open.
2. Hang the bag or suet basket on a tree outdoors. It should be on an open branch where cats can’t easily access it.
3. Wait, watch, and enjoy the birds that flock to it.

And we saw seagulls. And we had a picnic. We ate gummy bears.

We saw geese. Geese is going to have babies in the Rocky Mountains. You should go there sometimes.

We saw some black birds. See my mom’s picture on the computer at our .com (below). Them sing very beautiful.

We took a picture of this species of bird. We didn’t know what kind of bird this was it is so today we set out to find. McKayla looked at our 1008 page book looking for birds with black feathers and yellow beaks, while I tried doing an internet search. McKayla finally found the bird on page 783.

It was a European Starling.

We didn’t think it was the correct bird at first because we didn’t notice that this bird had white tipped feathers at first. The blackness of the birds was the most noticeable to us when we were watching them. A closeup photograph of the birds showed the white tips.

Common Name: European Starling
Family: Sturnidae
Species: Sturnus vulgaris
Length: About 8.5 inches
Wingspan: About 15.5 inches
Plumage: Sexes similar
Migration: Northern bird migrate
Weight: 8 ounces
Song:

Owls: With their feet they can pick-up food and put them in their mouth.

Heron: They have long toes because they like water and their long toes they stick into the mud because the mud is like glue to their feet.

Chicken: Chickens eat corn and eat lots of bugs (ooh!). They use their feet to scratch for the bugs.

Ducks: Ducks really like water too. And them eat bread and bugs. They have web between their toes for swimming.

Cassowary: The cassowary have big fat feet because they are big fat birds. They have a mohawk.

P.S.  It was my birthday. I am 7 now.

Chordata: a classification for animals that have a spine, are vertebrates.

Aves: Greek word for birds.

Warm-blooded: Warm-colded animal that keeps the same temperature in warm and cold weather.

Ornithology: The study of birds.

Ornithologists: A person that studies birds.

Famine: A severe shortage of food.

I learned a lot of stuff about science yesterday. I learned how to keep chocolate from melting when hiking. I learned how to keep people dry outside when it is raining. And I got to meet two girls from USA Today that were there looking for stuff to write about too. I’ll tell you what I learn later. I can’t right now because I am going downtown again.

Mom’s Notes: The Outdoor Retailer Show is a convention where stores who sale outdoor related products come to purchase products from manufacturers. I thought this would be a great time for McKayla to learn the science behind outdoor products but was pleasantly surprised about how much science she would actually be exposed too.

We spent quite a bit of time talking to the manufacturers reps. A few of them obviously didn’t know how to talk to a six year old, but most of them did very well at explaining things in terms McKayla could understand.

I’d especially like to thank the people at the 3M Corporate booth they spent a lot of quality time with McKayla explaining the science behind their products, and even fed her juice and muffins. They even gave her a bottle ScotchGard that she can use to experiment with as well. She is going to see if she can make some of her clothing more “hydrophobic.” She walked away from your booth saying, several times, “that was cool,” and I really liked that booth. She learned enough material to have plenty to talk about for a couple of weeks.

“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.”

Albert Einstein

“Science is organized knowledge.”

~ Herbert Spencer
(1820-1903)
English philosopher

This is what I learned about Polar Bears today. I am learning about the word extinct and what it means.

Polar bears eat meat. In 40 years the ice cube is going to melt and the polar bears home is going to collapse. The snow is getting really, really, really squishy. The polars bears are going to sink into the water and they might die. But polar bears are really, really, really, really good swimmers. They eat fish.