Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2020 i Cobblestone American History and Current Events for Kids and Children

By the time the first Audubon Society was organized in the late 1800s, the person it was named for had been dead for several decades. But John James Audubon left a strong impression on Americans. His most famous work, The Birds of America, consisted of 435 life-size watercolor prints of the birds of North America. Over time, his name has become synonymous with bird conservation. His life is a story of one man who overcame great odds and made sacrifices to achieve his goal: to turn a passion for birds and art into a profession. Have you ever heard the phrase a “labor of love”? That describes Audubon’s effort to produce The Birds of America. Living in the early 1800s as Audubon did, “research” meant traveling by foot through the…

John James Audubon was curious about some birds he saw near his Mill Grove home in the early 1800s. He caught a few of them, tied a thin silver string to their legs, and released them. The next year, the birds returned. Audubon realized that his feathered neighbors—eastern phoebes—returned to the same nesting spot each year. People had tried attaching bands to birds’ legs before Audubon’s experiment. More than 2,000 years ago, Roman officers sent messages attached to birds to keep their armies informed. During the Middle Ages, falconry was a popular sport for nobles. Falconers used bands as a way to show ownership. Audubon’s experiment, however, is the first example of banding being used to learn more about the movements of wild birds in North America. Today, only trained…

The Kirtland’s warbler is one of North America’s rarest warblers. But in 2019 after 50 years of effort, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service removed the little songbird from its endangered species list. The population of the Kirtland’s warbler now is growing thanks to habitat reforestation and the removal of invasive species—mainly the nest-grabbing cowbird. After being hunted for centuries, Atlantic puffins had essentially disappeared in the late 1800s from remote islands off the coast of Maine. But in the mid-1900s, rescuers cleverly used mirrors, decoys, and bird calls to convince the rare seabirds to reestablish colonies on their traditional island breeding grounds. Today, returning nesting pairs are building a thriving colony. Hawaii’s state bird is a rare goose known as the nene. In the 1970s, human encroachment had reduced…

Hi, it’s me, Colonel Crow. Like me, the birds on these pages are relatively common. We can be found all across North America. You can spot many of us in a variety of places. Busy cities. Suburban  neighborhoods. Rural locations. I thought introducing some common birds on these pages might help you get to know us. Maybe you’ll want to see if you can spot us in the wild. If you think we look beautiful here, wait until you see us in flight or hear us singing or calling! (Okay, not all of us have beautiful songs, but we all have calls!) Anyway, allow me to introduce you to my feathered friends! The American crow is a large black bird that has learned how to adapt to live closely with…

There was a time when people thought that bird feathers made their hats and clothing attractive and fashionable. So, people hunted birds for their feathers. Breeding season offered the best opportunity to collect feathers. When adult birds gathered in large numbers to build nests and care for their young, they became easy prey for hunters. After feather hunters killed the adult birds, baby birds were left to starve. By 1886, an estimated 5 million birds were slaughtered annually—simply for their feathers. In 1886, George Bird Grinnell organized a society to prevent the destruction of birds. He had been taught by Lucy Bakewell Audubon, John James Audubon’s wife. He decided to name his organization after Audubon. Although that organization eventually disbanded, a desire to help birds remained. A decade later, cousins…

Ornithology is a branch of science that focuses on the study of birds. An ornithologist is a scientist who studies birds. Both words are derived from Greek words: ornis, meaning “bird,” and logia, meaning “a branch or a school of study.” Oology is a branch of science that focuses on the study of eggs, usually bird eggs. It derives from two Greek words: oion, meaning “egg,” and logia, meaning “a branch or a school of study.” Aviculture is “the raising, keeping, and care of birds.” Related words are aviary (“a large enclosure for confining birds”), avian (“of or relating to birds”), aviate (“to operate an aircraft, fly”), aviation (“the operation of aircraft”), and aviator (“a person who operates an aircraft”). All these words derive from the same Latin word avis,…

This month’s mystery hero was quite famous—he won two Pulitzer Prizes for his talent drawing cartoons. Born in 1876 in Norwood, Michigan, our young hero spent most of his childhood in Sioux City, Iowa. He attended school, but his real education came from his time exploring nature. He loved roaming through prairie lands. He spent many hours hiking the banks of the Missouri River. As a youngster, he began to understand the need for conservation of America’s wilderness places. College was a challenge for our hero because he had a tendency to get himself in trouble. A biology professor showed him how everything in the natural world is connected. That instruction forever changed our hero’s way of thinking about nature. Our mystery hero enjoyed a successful career drawing political cartoons,…

Henderson, Kentucky, keeps the memory of John James Audubon alive through the John James Audubon State Park. The park extends across more than 700 acres. It includes the Audubon Woods, a bird sanctuary, and a lake reserved for bird and animal life. Visitors can fish, camp, hike, and boat. The site also offers a nature center, an art gallery, a museum, and the state-of-the-art Audubon Theater. The museum houses Audubon family memorabilia and paintings by Audubon and his sons, including first edition prints of The Birds of America.…

Calling all artists! Do you have a favorite bird? Or can you imagine a creature that combines all the characteristics of a bird (you know, two legs, a beak, wings, and feathers)? Need some encouragement to get your creative juices flowing? Ornithologist David Allen Sibley and the National Audubon Society can help. They created videos on how to draw a few different birds. Check them out at www.audubon.org/ get-outside/activities/audubon-forkids. We’d love to see your artwork. We’ll include as many as we can in an upcoming issue of COBBLESTONE. Send your artwork, name, and address to: Your Turn, COBBLESTONE, Cricket Media, 70 East Lake Street, Suite 800, Chicago, IL 60601, or email it to cobblestone@cricketmedia .com . Include a note from a parent or a legal guardian stating: “This is my child’s…

BENEATH THE WAVES William Beebe started his career studying birds in the late 1800s, but his fascination with the ocean led him to shift to marine exploration. He was determined to observe the creatures of the deep sea in their natural habitat. In the 1930s, he teamed up with engineer Otis Barton to design a submersible. The two men called it a “Bathysphere.” They made dives off the coast of Bermuda, lowering the vehicle from a cable into the ocean. The tiny round submersible had a small window that allowed Beebe to make observations. He noted the bright colorful fish and corals near the shore as well as the shades of deep blue and violet in the deeper ocean. The Bathysphere revealed a dark, beautiful world. Every time Beebe dived,…

Sport and Inventions Clara Barton Draw a picture or write a poem or short essay that connects to one of the above COBBLESTONE themes on which we currently are working. All contributions must be your original work. Include a note from a parent or legal guardian clearly stating: “This is my child’s original work, and COBBLESTONE has permission to publish it with my child’s name, age, and hometown, in print and online.” We will include as many as we can in the upcoming issue to which your work relates. Mail it to the address shown here, or email it to cobblestone@cricketmedia.com.…