Hi guys! Happy Friday! For your weekend enjoyment, here’s a quick list of links related to this week’s topic: BIRDS, BIRDS, BIRDS. Click, read, listen, and share.

Merlin, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s bird identification app, is my favorite app of all time. Not just my favorite nature app, mind you, my favorite app period. It’s unbelievably easy to use, gratifying, and super fun (especially the birdsong recordings). Plus, when you successfully ID a bird, that info is shared with the lab, which helps them track and better understand bird populations around the globe. Important stuff, people!

While you’re at it, check out some of the Cornell Lab’s live bird cams, and see how the other half lives (if the other half is birds). I watched a Bermuda petrel chick sleep for five minutes this morning and my serenity levels went through the roof. Staring at another person for five straight minutes while they sleep might be kind of creepy, but with birds it’s totally encouraged.

This story from Audubon about how kids are taking up birding during quarantine will make you feel hopeful about the future. Audubon also just launched a new online bird/nature education hub for kids that would make a perfect add-on to a homeschool curriculum. It’s overflowing with awesome activities and downloadable learning tools: bird drawing videos and coloring sheets, Q&A’s with experts, games, trivia, links to Audubon Adventures (the Audubon kid’s magazine)…there’s too much good stuff to list here. Full disclosure, I will absolutely be doing a lot of these activities myself, as a fully grown adult woman.

The American Bird Conservancy’s Bird Of The Week (yes, it’s a thing) is the Pileated woodpecker! Does the Pileated woodpecker sound anything like it’s TV cousin Woody? Listen to the sound clips and decide for yourself! You can browse past honorees too.

BirdNote is an absolutely lovely podcast that I have recently fallen head-over-heels for. Each episode is only TWO MINUTES long, a covers a snippet about birds, the environment, or some aspect of human-bird interactions. Sometimes listening to an entire, full-length podcast feels like too much, and BirdNote is the antidote. I’ve been consistently blow away by how much I learn in just two minutes, and I always come away feeling inspired, connected, and even more curious.