Build a Shorebird

Adapted from Learn About become familiar with some of the Introduction Seabirds. U.S. Fish and Wildlife most common threats to shorebird Most shorebirds are uniquely Service. survival. adapted to living in open spaces that also provide an abundant Grade level: lower elementary Objectives source of invertebrate foods. Their Duration: one 40 to 60-minute class After this activity, students will be adaptations are both physical (the period. able to: way they are built) and behavioral Skills: vocabulary, discussion, ■ Define the term adaptation (the way they act). This activity visualization, comparing ■ Describe three adaptations focuses on the physical adaptations similarities and differences unique to birds of birds--and then specifically of Subjects: science and history ■ Describe three adaptations shorebirds: their down and contour unique to shorebirds feathers, hollow bones, air sacs, Concepts: ■ Name the most significant threats long and pointed wings, camouflage ■ Shorebirds, like other shorebirds face today plumage, long legs and toes, animals, are adapted in three ■ Name two other human related specialized bills, and oil glands. ways to survive: physically, activities harmful to shorebirds physiologically, and behaviorally. Migration itself is considered an ■ Shorebirds have many physical, Materials adaptation that enables shorebirds or morphological, adaptations ■ Red, yellow, and blue student to take advantage of the abundant to help them walk, find food, flash cards (provided in this Arctic food resources in the spring hide, reproduce, and to fly long activity) and summer yet escape to more distances during migration. ■ Down jacket or vest hospitable southern climates for the ■ Adaptations are naturally ■ Pictures of down and contour winter. Unfortunately, migration selected over a long period of feathers also exposes these birds to a wide time, and specialized animals ■ Two large paper bird wings variety of threats along the way. like shorebirds cannot adapt ■ Several drinking straws or toilet Habitat loss, oil contamination, overnight to habitat damage or paper tubes disturbance, and trash are just a alteration. ■ Chicken bone few examples. ■ Balloons Vocabulary ■ Camouflage patterned hat, vest For more information shorebird ■ adaptation or cloth adaptations go the Shorebird ■ physical adaptation ■ Large enough piece of blue felt or Primer. ■ behavioral adaptation paper to stand on ■ guano ■ Spray bottle ■ habitat ■ Scissors ■ market shooting ■ Duct tape Activity Preparation ■ habitat loss ■ Cardboard bill or tweezers tied 1. Gather the materials listed. ■ plumage on a string necklace Consider enlisting help from ■ down feathers ■ Empty baby oil bottle your students. ■ contour feathers ■ M&Ms or gummy worms 2. Assign your students or a parent ■ migration ■ Popcorn volunteer to construct: ■ camouflage ■ String (20-40 feet) ■ invertebrate ■ Black paper oil splashes ■ one student-sized set of paper ■ Blue paper wetland wings (to be cut and modified Overview ■ 6-pack can rings or a net during the activity) Students will learn about the ■ Clothespins ■ one blue paper wetland to stand physical adaptations unique on to shorebirds by dressing up a ■ one cardboard bill volunteer with bird “adaptations” Optional ■ several black construction paper that gradually transform him or ■ Electric fan cut-outs of oil spills her into a bird-and then into a ■ Rubber boots or waders shorebird. They will discover that shorebirds are a diverse group of birds designed to feed and nest

in speciﬁc habitats. They will

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S M 135 I Explore the World with Shorebirds! S A T R ER G S RO CHOOLS P 3. Photocopy on cardstock and then Procedure 3. Distribute all the flash cards to cut out the activity flash cards 1. Explain the term adaptation the students. Tell them as you (included here) in the colors (a physical or behavioral describe what is needed by the shown below. There should be characteristic that has evolved bird, they should look at their enough so that every student over time to help a species flash cards and raise there hand except the bird volunteer has at survive and reproduce in the if they have the adaptation you least one card. For large classes, environment where it lives). Tell are describing. They will place students can share a card; on the students that they will be their adaptation on the “bird” person reads the card the other exploring the world of shorebird using clothespins. attaches the adaptation to the adaptations by building a “bird”. shorebird. 4. Begin to transform your volunteer into a bird with the ■ General Bird Adaptation Cards 2. Ask for a volunteer. This person yellow flash cards. Use the - yellow will be turned first into a bird, Teaching Notes 1-4 to guide the ■ Special Shorebird Adaptation then into a shorebird, and finally students through the activity. Cards - blue into a Western Sandpiper. He Repeat this process until all the ■ Threats to Shorebird Cards - red or she will also be subjected to yellow cards have been read and some threats a shorebird may the adaptations added to the

face. volunteer

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S M 136 I Explore the World with Shorebirds! S A T R ER G S RO CHOOLS P Teacher Notes: General Bird Adaptations (Yellow Cards)

Adaptation Description Material Needed

1. Down Feathers Feathers are a unique Dress bird in down jacket and Ask students to imagine they adaptation found only in birds. bird wings. are birds in flight. How does All birds have two kinds of it feel to be soaring above the feathers: Study comparison pictures of earth? Is it cold? Is skin enough down and contour feathers. to insulate you up there? 1) Down feathers — a kind of You will have had to adapt to bird underwear — fluffy, under- temperature extremes. How? feathers for insulation With feathers. 2) Contour feathers — strong 2. Contour Feathers outer feathers for flight that What sort of material is strong are also the bird’s clothes and and flexible enough for the coloration wings and tail to help you fly?

3. Hollow Bones Hollow bones reduce weight. Attach drinking straw or Ask students to think about Most of the bird’s weight is in cardboard paper roll to down how much they weigh. How the breast and wings (where the jacket. much do you think a Bald Eagle ﬂight muscles are). Our bones weighs? It only weighs between are not hollow but instead are Pass chicken bone around for 8–14 lbs. and has a 7–8 ft. wing ﬁlled with marrow for red blood the students to examine. span. cell production. Birds have marrow only in their breast bone.

4. Air Sacs Air sacs help birds take in Attach the balloons with Ask a volunteer to stand up enough oxygen for rigorous clothespins to your volunteer. and become a crow by flapping flight. Birds have lungs like we Each student with a yellow card his or her wings 20 times in do, but that is not enough. Air places one balloon on the bird. 10 seconds. Does flapping like sacs, like balloons, extend from a bird make you breath faster the lungs, between and into than just walking? Yes! hollow bones. During inhalation and exhalation, air flows through the lungs and the air sacs to maximize the absorption

of oxygen.

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S M You and your class have created a bird! 137 I Explore the World with Shorebirds! S A T R ER G S RO CHOOLS P Teacher Notes: Special Shorebird Adaptations (Blue Flash Cards)

Adaptation Description Material Needed

5. Long, pointed Wings Shorebirds migrate (ﬂy long Use the scissors to shape the tip Think about the different shapes distances) between their habitat of the volunteer’s paper wings so of bird wings. Why do penguins where they breed and the habitat they look long and pointed. have short, stubby wings while where they winter. Long, pointed an eagle has big, broad wings? Do wings help shorebirds ﬂy fast you think that wing shape might over such long distances. be related to the bird’s lifestyle? There wings also allow them to do aerial maneuvers to escape predators.

6. Camouflage Plumage Cryptic coloration, or camouflage, Place the camouflage clothing on How can a small bird protect makes birds less conspicuous. the bird. itself from larger predators? Their brown, black and white Would small shorebirds have plumage blends in well with much luck fighting with hawks their habitat--mudflats, beaches, on the beach or with foxes on the or grassy tundra. Larger tundra? shorebirds, like avocets and oystercatchers, cannot hide as easily and therefore are not so camouflaged.

7. Long Legs Shorebirds seldom perch in trees Place the blue material Do you need long legs to sit in but rather walk or roost on the representing a wetland on the a tree, ﬂy, or walk? How about ground. Many shorebirds walk ground for the shorebird to walk running from the waves? What on shorelines or mud to ﬁnd food. on. do humans use to walk and work Having long legs helps them in wet conditions? wade through water or mud. (The Optional: Put the rubber boots/ length of the legs of a shorebird waders on the bird. gives a clue to where it feeds.)

8. Long Toes Most shorebirds do not spend Using duct tape, attach three long What are your toes for? Toes are much time swimming. Therefore, drinking straws to each toe of for stability in walking. they do not need webbed feet, the bird. just long toes for stability and walking.

5. Now, explain that the class is going 6. Spray the volunteer lightly with 7. Continue with using the Teaching to continue adding adaptations, the water spray bottle and have Notes 5–11 to guide the class this time with adaptations unique them stand on the blue felt or through the blue ﬂash cards. to shorebirds. Clarify to your contruction paper. Our bird is students that shorebirds are now a wetland-loving shorebird. birds of open spaces that ﬂy long distances (migrate) to between their breeding and nonbreeding

habitats.

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S M 138 I Explore the World with Shorebirds! S A T R ER G S RO CHOOLS P Teacher Notes: Special Shorebird Adaptations (Blue Flash Cards)

Adaptation Description Material Needed

9. Bills Bills, or beaks, are used for Attach a cardboard bill to the What do people use to feed picking up food, nest construction, volunteer or tie tweezers on a themselves—(forks, straws, courtship, preening, and defense. string necklace around the neck chopsticks, ﬁngers, lips, teeth, etc.)? Curlews probe deeply into the of the “bird” to represent the Do you use different things to help ground with their long, curved bills. shorebird’s bill. you eat different types of foods? Plovers and Surfbirds have short, stout bills to pick up prey they spot Place gummy worms in the mouth on the surface of sand or rocks. of the volunteer. These represent Sanderlings have tapering, the segmented worms or the long, tweezer-like bills to help them stretchy nemertean worms that “stitch” the sand—(a rapid, some Sandpipers like to eat. You repeated probing) to pull up worms may also feed the bird M&Ms and crustaceans right below the or other candy-coated treats, surface of the beach. representing crunchy-coated invertebrates.

10. Oil Glands The oil glands help keep shorebirds’ Attach the baby oil bottle to the Pour oil (cooking or other colored feathers waterproof. Feathers are back of the down jacket. Ask the oil) and water into a beaker and kept clean and smooth by constant bird to try to preen! observe the separation. Does the preening with oil from the oil gland oil get wet? What does “get wet” found above the base of the tail. The mean? “Wet” means saturated oil is transferred to the plumage with water. Ask students how they (feathers) with the bill or the back keep dry in the rain. Is rain gear of the head. treated with any special coating? Yes!

11. Guano Guano from shorebirds, just Sprinkle the popcorn around the Imagine all the shorebird as from other birds and bats, volunteer shorebird. droppings left behind by the large contributes to the chain of life. migratory ﬂocks of birds! Do you Tiny plants and animals use guano think there is any value to guano? nutrients. They in turn become food for small ﬁsh, crustaceans, and other animals that shorebirds and even people eat.

Congratulations your class has built

a shorebird!

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S M 139 I Explore the World with Shorebirds! S A T R ER G S RO CHOOLS P Teacher Notes: Threats To Shorebirds (Red Cards)

Threat Description Material Needed

12. Habitat Destruction Most shorebirds depend on habitat in Restrict the habitat Define the term estuary three areas: breeding, nonbreeding, available to the shorebird and wetland. Have you seen and migration stopover sites. Wetlands, flock by penning it in with any shorebirds around your estuaries in particular, are important desks or by winding string area? What kind of habitat stopover sites. They are also very around the student birds to is it? Is there any threat of attractive to humans as a source of water tie them together. it being destroyed? If there or home sites. Water is drained away or its is not a local concentration course altered, and bridges, houses, and docks are built. Animals and plants that Now pass out gummy of shorebirds, another well- worms to all shorebirds known local animal can be provide food and shelter for the shorebirds are destroyed. that have habitat. What substituted for the discussion. about everyone else? Can we make new habitat? How can we fix ruined habitat?

13. Oil Contamination Oil spills kill shorebirds and destroy their Pin oil splashes on the habitat for many years. volunteer shorebirds.

14. Disturbance If flocks are disturbed and cannot refuel Have the students make How could disturbance harm with food at their traditional stopover noise to simulate ATVs or a shorebird or flock of young points, they may not have another motorcycles. birds? Can you think of some chance to find enough food for their long migrations. examples of disturbance? Alternatively, turn on the (planes, people coming too electric fan and point it close to nesting shorebirds, toward the flock to simulate Jet skis, pets) a disturbance.

15. Trash Plastic debris and other trash can be Place netting or plastic six- Have you ever seen trash mistaken for food. Shorebirds can also get pack rings somewhere on littering our wetlands? Where tangled in discarded ﬁsh line and six-pack the sandpipers. did it come from? Remember can rings. Abandoned cars, appliances, to put trash in cans, cut up and other trash items can leak poisons into plastic rings and long strings, wetlands. and dispose of tangled ﬁsh line at home.

8. Now discuss the importance manufacture of food by tine 9. Now turn the volunteer into of shorebird scat (guano). plants and plankton. These “food a Western Sandpiper that is Sprinkle the popcorn around makers” (photosynthesizers) part of a huge flock. Western the volunteer shorebird. Guano become food in turn for small Sandpipers are very small from shorebirds, just as from fish, invertebrates, and other Arctic-nesting shorebirds other birds and bats, contributes animals. The food web is familiar to many people because to the chain of life. Nutrients continued, and eventually of their huge migratory flocks. from guano area returned includes the shorebirds and even Select a few students to join the to the wetlands that the humans. Every organism, and its volunteer shorebird, perhaps shorebird uses. The (elemental activities, has a part in the chain holding hands to create a flock of and molecular) nutrients in of life on our planet. Western Sandpipers. If you do

guano are made available for not have Western Sandpipers in

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S M 140 I Explore the World with Shorebirds! S A T R ER G S RO CHOOLS P your area (check the Shorebird Describe three special adaptations Plumage Coloration Profile list in the Appendix), of shorebirds. Have students work in small select another flocking shorebird, Camouflage plumage teams. Have each team select a Dunlin for example, to create a Long, pointed wings a shorebird from the Shorebird class flock. Do not put students Legs for walking, wading, and Coloring Pages in the Appendix. still holding red flashcards in running Make multiple copies of the coloring the flock. Bill for probing or picking pages your students select. Using a bird field guide for reference, 10. Even with all these wonderful Why are shorebirds important? have them color a drawing for adaptations, life is not easy for Add diversity each of the birds’ plumages (adult a shorebird! In addition to the Important part of food web, breeding, adult wintering, and difficulties of migrating long including prey for raptors and juvenile). When everyone is done, distances over the ocean or in their guano fertilizes habitat compare the plumages of different bad weather, shorebirds face species. Which have very different many human-caused dangers. What is the most significant threat wintering and breeding plumages? Market hunting has killed to shorebirds today? Which are very similar? Do millions of shorebirds in the Habitat alteration or loss females always look like males? past. While it is illegal to kill and sell shorebirds today, other Name two other human-related Create Your Own threats have grown significantly. activities that can be harmful to “Super” Shorebird Habitat loss is the biggest threat shorebirds. Ask students to design their own to shorebird survival today. Oil contamination (oil spills) shorebird to fit into the habitat of Trash their choice. Explain to them that 11. Now guide the students Disturbing birds from their this bird does not have to resemble through the red flash cards that nests, or while resting or feeding a real shorebird and that it does not represent shorebirds threat. have to live in a “natural” habitat. Explain to those students how Additional Activities It does, however, have to be well to “carry out the threat” on the Build a Shorebird, Maya (activity adapted to its surroundings so it flock of students as directed in sheet) can find food, nest, and migrate. the Teacher Notes. Have younger students complete Instruct each student to write a the worksheet Build A Shorebird, brief bird biography that describes 12. Wrap-up the activity using the Maya. Ask each student to write his where it lives during the breeding question below. or her own story about where Maya and nonbreeding seasons, what it lives or develop the story together eats, and any special behaviors it What Makes a Bird a Bird? as a class. Ask them to color Maya has. Describe three unique adaptations so that she is well camouflaged for of birds. the habitat she lives in. Feathers Hollow Bones Comparing Wings Air Sacs Have older students look for at least four different wing sizes and shapes found in birds of your area. Some examples might include pheasant, eagle, hummingbird, and tree swallow. Ask them to make drawings of the wing shapes they choose and compare the lifestyles, food habits, and habitat types of

these birds.

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S M 141 I Explore the World with Shorebirds! S A T R ER G S RO CHOOLS P Build a Shorebird Student Activity Flash Cards Bird Adaptations

(Photocopy back-to-back on yellow cardstock.)

Bird Adaptation Bird Adaptation

Down Contour Feathers Feathers

Bird Adaptation Bird Adaptation

Hollow

Bones Air Sacs

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S M 142 I Explore the World with Shorebirds! S A T R ER G S RO CHOOLS P Build a Shorebird Student Activity Flash Cards Bird Adaptations

(Photocopy back-to-back on yellow cardstock.)

Bird Adaptation Bird Adaptation

Strong outer feathers are These are the ﬂuffy under- used for ﬂight. These are feathers for insulation (the also the bird’s clothes and bird’s underwear). coloration.

Bird Adaptation Bird Adaptation

A lot of energy is needed to give birds energy to ﬂy. Air sacs come from the lungs, These help a bird keep its between and into hollow weight low so it can ﬂy. bones. They help increase the amount of oxygen the

bird can absorb.

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S M 143 I Explore the World with Shorebirds! S A T R ER G S RO CHOOLS P Build a Shorebird Student Activity Cards Shorebird Adaptations

(Photocopy back-to-back on blue cardstock.)