Background
The lives of boreal forest songbirds are fairly complicated. Some must migrate huge distances to arrive at their breeding grounds and successfully raise young. Others must survive long cold winters. Each day they must find enough food and adequate shelter to survive and they must avoid predators. Sometimes birds get caught in a mist net at Creamer's and visit the banding lab. As they survive each day they play an important role in the boreal forest. Songbirds disperse seeds and help to keep the insect population under control. The boreal forest in turn helps the birds by providing a habitat where they and their food can live.

Procedure

1. Begin the activity with a brainstorming session describing a possible day in the life of a boreal forest songbird. List as many events as the children can think of. Consider the problems birds might face such as finding food, avoiding predators, being captured by humans for research, etc. Then explore the successes birds may enjoy throughout their day like finding good food, a nice mate, and a safe territory.
2. Write a story using some of the details included in the brainstorming event as well as your own ideas. Pick the particular day, season and circumstances (nesting, migrating) your bird will encounter.
3. These reports can be presented to the teacher, the class or made into a classroom book.

An extension to this activity might be to have the children draw a picture of the bird they wrote about in a boreal forest habitat. Another activity would be to choose a specific bird and do some research in field guides or the activity book. Students could find out exactly what their bird would be doing during a day in its life, such as what type of food it would eat, what predators it avoids, and where it will spend the winter.