national aviary >> what's for lunch

HUNTERS AND HUNTED
Some birds hunt other animals to get their food, while some have to be on guard against animals that want to hunt them. Can you tell the difference between a hunter and a hunted bird?

HOW'S THE WATER?
Birds need safe drinking water as well as food. See what can happen to birds if their water supply is polluted, then learn how to do some experiments and test the safety of your water.

BEAKS ARE TOOLS
Good food can be hard to get at. Birds have evolved beaks that are very good at gathering their special food. Can you figure out what a bird eats by looking at it's beak?

BACKYARD BIRDFEEDER
Attract certain kinds of birds by putting out specific foods. We show you how.

Test and determine the food preferences of backyard birds.

feeder box,
suet,
mealworms,
cracked corn,
safflower seeds,
mixed fruit,
sunflower seeds,
nectar or sugar water

OBSERVE: spend time outside identifying birds that live near your school.

QUESTION: Predict which birds will eat certain types of food from your feeder. Can you think of anything that would make different birds choose different foods?

BEGIN YOUR EXPERIMENT: this will be a scientific study of backyard birds.

MAKE A HYPOTHESIS: Complete this sentence–
"The ________ will eat the ________ because ______________."

TEST YOUR HYPOTHESIS: Place 4 to 6 different types of food in the tester trays. Arrange the trays next to each other.

GATHER INFORMATION:Watch the birds eat from your feeders for one week. Record the number of birds that take each kind of food. Your chart might look like this:

	suet	mealworms	fruit	sunflower seeds
species 1 species 2 species3 etc...	––– ––– ––– –––	––– ––– ––– –––	––– ––– ––– –––	––– ––– ––– –––

ANALYZE YOUR INFORMATION: Chart the different birds that came to each food.

EXPLAIN YOUR RESULTS: Compare your hypothesis to what you actually saw. Are the birds that go to a certain food similar in some way (like size, or beak shape?). If there's time, you could change your hypothesis, change the foods offered, and gather new data.

The different birds you see in your backyard or park eat lots of different things. In this experiment, you'll offer a variety of foods. Keep track of which birds prefer which foods, and come up with some theories about birds' favorites.