Where's the birdie?

As you may or may not know, this half term in Class 2, we have become seriously interested in birds.  This all started with a character in our book 'Aubrey and the Terrible Ladybirds'. 

Now you would think that with a title like that we would become engrossed (or just grossed out!) by bugs and spiders and what have you.  And you would be right, but it was the character of Hirundo that caught our imagination.  Hirundo is a swallow.  You see, when we started the book the swallows who dart and dive over the cricket pitch and swoopp so low over our field were just returning from Africa.  We became curious about our new neighbours and wanted to find out more.  So we did.  

At the same time, we started using an app called Merlin by Cornell University.  This clever app uses the microphone on our school iPads to identify the birds we share our school with.  We expected four or five different species (blackbirds, pigeons, rooks and little brown jobbies) and so were amazed when we spent the time to be still and quiet outside to see what was there.  The record, I believe is 12 including greenfinches, godlfinches, nuthatches and house martins.  

The children used the app down in forest school and were amazed at who they were sharing their school grounds with!  If you want to try the free app for yourself you can find th elink to your appstore here:

https://merlin.allaboutbirds.org/