Flamingo Friday--The Andean Flamingo

Source:
Copyright Trevor Rickard and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

Today I want to share with you a little about the Andean Flamingo. First I want to share that they are on the endangered list because their numbers are plummeting.I am going to share information I found in Birds edited by Tim Harris. It is part of the Facts at Your Fingertips and Endangered Animals series by Brown Bear Books. I will also add some information I found on-line. We will start with this YouTube video of some Andean flamingos in Bolivia.


The Andean flamingo is the rarest of the world's five species of flamingos. They belong to one of the oldest bird families which originated over 50 million years ago and are now threatened by the continuing exploitation and deterioration of their habitat. The Andean flamingo has show a decline equal to 24 percent in 15 years. Breeding success is consistently low and the adults live 50 years (therefore considered long-lived).

By Valerio Pillar (DSC_5251.JPG (DSC_5241 cropped)) [CC-BY-SA-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

They live on the puna. The puna is a high, cold, dry plateau in the Andes Mountains. These flamingos live in Peru, Argentina, Bolivia and Chile. The flamingos live in lakes where the water is ten times as salty as the sea. The lakes are home to diatoms which are microscopic single-cell algae which is what these flamingos eat. Like all the other flamingos, the Andean flamingo is an upside down filter feeder. (For more on feeding see my post here.) Here is a YouTube video of some Andean flamingos feeding Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust near Slimbridge, Gloucestershire, United Kingdom.


In the winter the Andean flamingos migrate to the lower wetlands. It is expected that this migration is due to the extreme aridity of the lakes in winter.  (Source)

The species nest in only ten or so major colonies and the breeding sites are under increasing pressure. Away from regular colonies, the flamingos are still hunted for their meat, feathers and fat (used in traditional medicine). Most of the birds killed are juveniles. Some people also remove their eggs for personal consumption or to be sold. There have also been an increase in mining near the breeding colonies and the development of the mining industry and towns to support it are major threats. There is water pollution as well as water diversion which cause fluctuating water levels. (For more on breeding and the life of a chick see my post here.

Source: Arpingstone at Wikimedia Commons

Now what makes the Andean flamingo different than the other species of flamingos? They are the only flamingos with yellow legs. Their bodies are pale pink with bright underparts and noticeable black patch on the wings.  Their bills are yellow and black and of course curved. (Source) They have three forward facing toes with no hind toes. Their voice is nasal and raspy in the calls in the colonies. The young Andean flamingos are grey in color. (Source)

By Paulo Fassina (Flamingo Flying 2) [CC-BY-SA-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

I should note that only the greater flamingo is not considered threatened. Even with several million birds (all four species combined) they are threatened due to hunting, long breeding cycle and there are fewer than 30 major breeding sites in the world.

I'll be sharing this in the Multicultural Kid Blog Hispanic Heritage Blog Hop. Have you entered the amazing giveaway yet?

Flamingo Friday--Flamingos' Coloring

Welcome to our second Flamingo Friday!! We have been enjoying learning more about flamingos and hope you are too! Today we are sharing a non-fiction book with you and something we learned from it.

We have been reading several flamingo books. We will share each one with you eventually. If you missed the first one which was the wordless Flora and the Flamingo, you can check it out here. Today we are going to share Wild Flamingos by Bruce McMillan.

Now before I begin with what we did with this book, I would like to point out the wonderful picture on the cover. I love it because you can see the black flying feathers of the flamingo. Did you know they had black feathers?

Source

This book focuses on flamingos on the Caribbean island of Bonaire. The species of flamingo are the Greater Flamingos which are the largest of the flamingos. Their average height is five to five and a half feet tall. Their average weight is eight pounds for the males (who are taller) and six and a half for the females. Their populations is estimated to be half of the number there was before Europeans first came to the Americas. Bonaire protects the flamingos and their breeding ground. There is concern about the development of their feeding area in Venezuela though. The book goes through the lives of a flamingo from birth until adulthood and returning to nest again.

Now many people know that flamingos get their color from the food they eat. They eat small shellfish and immature brine flies at both the free-swimming larvae and intermediate chrysalid stages. All of these animals eat aquatic plants and bacteria that contain the same chemicals that make carrots orange. So for a simple craft we decided to paint with carrots. We experimented with a few different methods. First we took a carrot and tried to use it as a paintbrush. I gave Hazel pictures to color that I printed out. The first one came from Lucy Learns.

This method worked all right, but was not great. Here is our end result:

Our other method involved grating the carrot and then placing the pieces on the picture and hammering them into the picture.

We put a piece of paper on the bottom and top. I think we actually flipped it so the picture was on top. Immediately afterward the picture looked like this:

This coloring page came from The Color. Then after it dried a bit, I picked off some of the carrot flakes and we got this:

We also bought a can of carrots to try to paint with, but we haven't had time yet. 

The other interesting thing I learned about flamingos is how they eat. The flamingos always eat with their heads upside down. Their top jaw is hinged and moves like our lower jaws. They filter-feed and are able to separate the food from water and mud. Their bills are lined with hair like teeth that filter the food. Sometimes you will see a flamingo move its feet and bill around before eating. This is to stir up the mud a bit and get the food in the water since it is easier to filter water than mud. 

So that is our lesson flamingos this Flamingo Friday!! I hope you enjoyed it!! And definitely check out Wild Flamingos by Bruce McMillan for more about the Greater Flamingos in Bonaire!

Flamingo Friday

Today I am going to start a new series on flamingos. Now Hazel has loved flamingos from a young age. They were one of her favorite animals at the zoo from the first time we went there. Since she has shown an interest in them we tend to focus on them a bit. So each Friday we will share a book, movie, craft, activity about flamingos. I love this picture of Hazel at Sea World this June with one of the flamingos who was being taken back to his cage with a couple of his friends. You can see how big they actually are.

However today we are going to share a wonderful book we found at the library. It is wordless. The book is Flora and the Flamingo by Molly Idle.

Flora is a young girl who dresses in her pink bathing suit and swimming gear to try to act like the flamingo. She tries to copy the flamingos poses.

We went through and tried some of the poses too. However a bathing suit would have made it easier to see the poses. Sorry!

The flamingo keeps checking out what Flora is doing, but Flora pretends she is not copying the bird when it looks.

Hazel and Flora did well until the sleeping pose came. Then they both ended in a bit of a somersault. 

At this point the flamingo invites Flora to dance with it teaching her the poses. They dance as a couple for some of it. We did this, but could not get pictures. I did take this last picture of her though.

We truly enjoyed Flora and the Flamingo and trying to copy the movements in it. I hope you will check it out and have enjoyed our first flamingo post.

Irish Chicken and Leek Pie--and some signs of spring!

Well this year (March through February) I have joined some great bloggers in traveling the world through dishes. Our first stop is Ireland. Since I shared a bit about Ireland the other day with the first of the Irish Cinderellas, I will skip doing it again. I am very excited to join this group, because I see it as such a wonderful way to expose Hazel to new cultures and countries and for her to learn a bit more about the world. 

Before we take our trip to Ireland, however, I am going to share with you the reason we did not make Irish Soda Bread today and why Hazel did not help me with the Irish Chicken and Leek Pie for dinner. We had a beautiful feels like spring day. So we went out to play this afternoon. When Steve got done with work, he came out and I came in to cook dinner and go to my Weight Watchers meeting. 

Hazel and I went on a walk around our neighborhood looking for signs of spring. We saw budding trees, birds, and the tops of flower plants poking up. We went home and filled a suet feeder with scraps of yarn, wool roving and ribbon and hung it on a tree and we filled the bird feeder. Then Hazel pulled out her magnifying glass and eventually pulled out her garden shovel and rake and dug in the garden. When I came back out, Hazel had been joined by our next door neighbor who is eleven but still loves to play with Hazel and they were having a great time rebuilding their fairy house. And for those of you who read our post about the snow storm last week, here is what is left of Hazel's snow mountain.

It is amazing how fast it is melting!! I am glad robin has woken Sister Spring up!

Ok, now back to Ireland! Today we tried a recipe from a book I got out of the library, Cooking the Irish Way by Helga Hughes. It came from the children's section so I thought it would be great to get Hazel and I trying some Irish cooking. I decided to try the chicken and leek pie. I was not sure how Steve and Hazel would feel about the leek aspect, but figured I would give it a try. Overall, we all loved it. Hazel was not totally sure about the leeks, but ate them mixed in with everything else.

I did change the recipe a bit, but not too much.

Chicken and Leek Pie (adapted from Cooking the Irish Way by Helga Hughes)
1 package ready made pie crust (I bought frozen, but would have preferred refrigerated)
6 slices of uncured precooked bacon (this is the only way we really do bacon in my house)
1 tablespoon olive oil (The recipe called for bacon fat)
2 small leeks, chopped (I bought already cleaned ones)
1 1/2 cups of chicken breast already cooked and cut into bite size pieces
6 tablespoons flour
1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary
1/2 teaspoon ground pepper
4 tablespoons nonfat milk
1/2 cup fat free sour cream
1 cup frozen mixed vegetables (I put these in in case Hazel or Steve would not eat the leeks)
2 tablespoons fresh parsley chopped
2 tablespoons milk for glazing

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Press one of the crusts into pie pan. Cook/heat bacon in microwave and then chop it.

In skillet heat oil. While heating put chicken and leeks into large ziploc bag and add flour. Shake to coat chicken and leeks with flour. Put chicken and leeks into oil and discard excess flour. Stir and brown leeks and chicken. Remove from heat.

Stir in the bacon, rosemary, pepper, milk, sour cream and mixed vegetables. Then spoon into pie crust. Sprinkle parsley on top. Then cover with second pie crust. Glaze with milk by using brush or paper towel. Cut slits in pie (unless you used a frozen one like me and it already had slits/cuts through it). 

Put in oven for 20 minutes at 400. Then turn temperature down to 350 and bake for 15-20 minutes longer, until crust is a light golden brown.

We had ours with the suggested salad. Then Hazel and I had strawberries for dessert. A delicious meal!! We will be trying some more Irish recipes this week, so stay tuned!!

You can find an Ireland coloring placemat right here and the passport right here (the cover for the passport is right here for you!).

Peg Doll Animals

I'm still being inspired by Margaret Bloom and her new book, Making Peg Dolls, well actually I guess her book blog tour. Last Friday, Anna Branford was the book tour stop and she shared some adorable animal peg dolls. Now of course there is more to the story. Last Thursday when I went to pick Hazel up from school, I saw a bluebird fly by in the long driveway to the school. Now a bluebird in the winter is very unusual here, but its brilliant blue wings and reddish pink breast made me certain it was. Now remember this is the day before the blizzard hit here. Poor bird. Anyway, I went inside and was talking to the teachers about the bluebird and one of them mentioned how seeing a bluebird always makes her and her husband happy. That night I told Hazel a story about Happy the bluebird at bedtime. Then I saw the bluebird that Margaret Bloom made at Anna Brandford's site and I was inspired. I decided to make a bluebird.

Now I was a bit lazy and glued instead of sewed the head and such. But I am happy with how it came out. Next I decided on a robin. Yes, with all this snow I am thinking about spring.

Plus Hazel got the book How Robin Saved Spring by Debbie Oullet for her birthday. This is a wonderful book that tells the tale of Lady Winter and Sister Spring and how the animals try to wake Sister Spring when Lady Winter uses her magic to keep Sister Spring sleeping so she can stay reigning the world. In the story you find out why some animals hibernate and why the maple tree gives sap for syrup and other wonders in nature (like why the robin is red breasted). Last year I needle felted her Lady Winter and Sister Spring dolls, but I don't think I ever shared them with you.

Then wanting to get away from birds, I decided to make a red fox. A fox has been in a few of our stories as of late, so I thought she would appreciate it. One of her favorite play things is to use her peg dolls or even Barbie dolls to make puppet shows and tell stories. I love her creativity!

She has asked me to make a seagull, pigeon, chickadee, gold finch, cow, horse, parrot, ... next. I guess I better get some more peg dolls.

For my previous Margaret Bloom inspired peg dolls visit here.

Days of the Blackbird--Virtual Book Club for Kids

Last week we kicked off this month of the Virtual Book Club for Kids with two of Tomie dePaola's books with angels.

This week we are sharing Days of the Blackbird: A Tale of Northern Italy. This sweet story is a way that La Giornate della Merla, The Days of the Blackbird, may have come to be. It is a fictional story to explain a true Northern Italian holiday.

The story is about a duke and his daughter. The duke is well respected and well liked in the town and many people come to him for his advice. However in the warm weather his daughter and he sit in their courtyard to listen to the birdsong. Their favorite bird is an all white bird which his daughter calls La Colomba. This bird is always the first to return in the spring and the last to leave in the fall and has the most beautiful voice.

Late one fall the duke falls ill. His daughter worries about him greatly. As the winter begins some of the birds begin to leave, but his daughter goes and begs them not to leave. She feeds them and puts out baskets with wool to keep them warm. Eventually all of the birds except La Colomba leave. She begs La Colomba to stay and he does. He sings on the windowsill for the duke every day. Then the coldest days of the year occur--the last three days of January and La Colomba needs to find more warmth and goes to sleep in the chimney. On the third day he returns to sing but the daughter is shocked to see a blackbird and realizes it is La Colomba. After that La Colomba is called La Merla (Blackbird) and never changes back to white. The duke of course becomes healthy and calls the last three days of January the Days of the Blackbird since it was La Merla that saved him.

Well we had quite a fun time with this one. Hazel has been asking questions about fire a bit, so I burned some scrap paper in a tin can to make ashes and then added water to them. We used this ash water as paint.

We started with La Colomba. We used a picture I found at DLTK-Growing Together.

Then Hazel painted the picture with the ash water and I helped a bit.

The result was La Merla, though not as black as if we had used real paint, but I liked giving the lesson of ashes and soot.

I also made the white bird pictured above using a pattern in Living Craft Magazine last year. I made Hazel a black one to go with this book. Now she uses them to act out the story. (Can I tell you how sad I am that Living Crafts is no longer published?)

Now it is your turn to share your favorite activities to go with Tomie dePaola books.

More Holiday Fair Crafts

Today I thank God for my faith because I know with it all things are possible!

So there have been several emails about the shortage of things for the Holiday Fair at Hazel's school. Even though I have done more than what was asked of me for donations, I figured I would keep working until the fair next week. I made a felt bird similar to the one I made last year with the pattern from Living Crafts Magazine. I didn't take a picture of it. Sorry! I'll have to find the one I made last year for Hazel and get a picture at some point.

Then I made a felt duck. I used the free pattern Lucky Ducky from Nosey Nest Pattern Shop. Hazel of course loves this duck and wants it. I promised her I would make her one after the fair.

Next I made for the Pocket Lady a small felt bunny. This was so easy and quick. I will probably make some more of these and maybe put some on barrettes for the Wee Folk Shoppe. I got the idea from Artemis Moon. I just drew a quick pattern for myself.

Then I made a baby penguin with the tutorial on Holloughby. I printed the picture of the shapes pinned on the felt full size and used that as my pattern. I sewed everywhere and did not use glue.

I have a feeling I will be making another one of these as well after the fair. Anyway, I chose to do some hand sewing since I can do it in front of the television without disturbing Steve as well as while Hazel plays. I figure I will keep making things until the 17th. If I do one or two a day, at least it will get them closer to their goals.

Happy Halloween!

Source

Just thought I would share some pictures of Hazel in her costume. I made it from Simplicity pattern 2065. She will also wear the dress for her princess themed birthday party this year!

Needless to say, she loves it!

We also went to a small Halloween party at church the other day and she decorated some pumpkins with stickers.

For breakfast this morning we had pumpkin pancakes. We made them yesterday, but had plenty left over, so I arranged them on Hazel's plate and she recognized it right away as a jack 'o lantern.

Then she wanted to get started with her pumpkins. We had two relatively small ones to paint and a medium one to carve. I let her start painting while I finished up doing somethings around the house.

 For some reason I did not take pictures of the finished pumpkins. She also added stickers to them. Then we started carving the medium pumpkin. She helped scoop out all the gook. Then I found a Snow White pattern that I saved a few years ago from Disney Family and carved it. I have to admit this is the best carving job I have ever done. She loved it and that is all that mattered.

Then we had a quick lunch and got her costume on. We had a few errands to run and three of them were places where we know people so she wanted to show off her costume.

My mother-in-law bought her the ballerina basket that came with the pink crown. Then after our errands we did some trick-or-treating and friends houses that were too far to walk. Then we went to a few neighbors houses. We always go very early. The last two years Steve has been working crazy hours due to storms, so we have to get home to hand out the candy. Hazel loves handing out the candy. She was so over excited today. And for some reason this year we had probably a quarter of what we usually get. I guess it is because I went with cheap candy so less kids were out or perhaps it was because of the storm though last year we had an ice storm right before Halloween and the numbers were still high.

One small craft for you that I started in the dark the other night. I got the pattern for this felt bat from Super-Cute Felt by Laura Howard. I still have a bit of sewing to do on it, but it is almost done.

Before Hazel (and Steve) went to bed, Hazel sorted through her candy to leave some for the Pumpkin Fairy. This year the Pumpkin Fairy is bringing her a Rapunzel Barbie doll--not Waldorf, but she will love it and I bought it on clearance since I haven't had time to make much for her. 

What are you doing to celebrate Halloween?