Feathered Friends

Spring announces its arrival each year with gifts for our senses: fragrant flower blooms, warm rays of sunshine, and my personal favorite…melodies from the songbirds. This spring a flock of green parrots has taken residence in the trees lining my street. These parrots are remarkably colorful, adorning long, beautiful lime-green feathers with streaks of red and yellow. I love how they look like a blurred rainbow in the sky when they take flight together. The hummingbirds have also returned, offering our neighborhood an invitation to pause from the rush of our day and take notice of their tiny wings fluttering as they sip nectar from blooming flowers. Thinking about the diversity these visitors bring to my neighborhood, I designed an art project aimed at embracing the beauty and uniqueness of the birds around us.

In this project, artists create their own neighborhood of birds with different patterns and features, choosing to use a combination of paint, feathers, tissue paper, or any other embellishments that call to them.

Before starting the project, I showed the children some images of birds with colorful and distinct features. They were quite enthused by the photos and I think it was helpful in getting the artists to think creatively. Here are a few of the images that generated delight from the children: 

Royal flycatcher Mandarin duck Keel-billed toucan

Supplies

To make your own Neighborhood of Feathered Friends, you will need:

• Paper plates

• Construction paper

• Tissue paper

• Colored feathers

• Glue

• Paint

• Paint brushes

• Googly eyes (or a marker)

Instructions

1. Fold a paper plate in half and secure the crease. The bottom side of the plate should be on the outside of the fold.

2. Open the plate back up and paint it in as many colors as desired. For artists who do not enjoy paint, dot pens can work as a colorful substitute. Thick layers of paint are not necessary for this project. If your artist likes to use a lot of paint, wait a few minutes for the paint to dry before moving to the next step.

3. Personalize the bird by gluing on embellishments such as feathers, tissue paper, gems, or sparkles. 

4. Cut the construction paper into a triangle in your preferred beak color. The bigger the piece, the bigger the beak! Fold the plate back along the crease made in step 1, and secure the beak over the top of the crease with glue.

5. Give the bird its sight, either using googly eyes or a marker.

Our planet is home to 10,000 bird species, inspiring us with endless combinations of color and pattern combinations. Let's draw from the richness in nature and encourage our artists' imaginations to take flight as they create their own neighborhood of birds this spring! 

If you and your artist are interested in learning more about diversity in birds, BioExplorer and National Geographic offer fun, kid-friendly bird facts and photos.