Editor’s Note: Starting today in “The Nature of Things,” Reeser Manley will provide activities for connecting youngsters with nature on a biweekly basis. He also writes a weekly gardening column for the Bangor Daily News and teaches botany, ecology, physics and chemistry at Shead Memorial High School in Eastport.

Adaptations are characteristics or behaviors that plants and animals have which help them survive in their environments. It is a common misconception, even among college students, that an animal can adapt to its environment by changing its traits. Use this fun backyard activity to help children understand that birds do not choose the shape and size of their beaks. The activity is designed for a group of two to four children in grades 2-6.

MATERIALS:

1 pair tweezers

1 pair wire pliers

1 pair kitchen tongs

1 small kitchen strainer

1 cup rice

10 poker chips, or other things that will sink in water

1 cup balsam fir needles

1 cup dried beans or nuts

1 pie tin per child

1 paper cup per child

1 short log (2-3 feet long)

2 shallow kitchen pans

Poster-size piece of paper for charting results

Pictures of local birds with distinctive types of beaks

SETUP:

Drill log with several holes, each angled slightly downward to hold rice grains; each hole should be about 1 inch deep and 1 inch in diameter. Fill a two- or three-gallon pail with water to a depth one-half the length of the tongs.

Set up four stations on an outdoor table: the log (upright) with a few grains of rice in each hole; the pail of water with poker chips (or sinkable substitute) at the bottom; a shallow pan with fir needles floating on water; and a shallow pan containing the dried beans or nuts. The tongs, pliers, tweezers and strainer represent respectively the beaks on: wading birds, finches such as a cardinal or sparrow, woodpeckers, and mallards or similar dabbling ducks.

THE ACTIVITY:

Assign each child a tool and starting station. Ask them to pretend that they are birds and the tools are their beaks. At your signal, each child tries to pick up as many of the food objects as they can before you tell them to stop. They should put the objects they collect in paper cups. Allow 30 seconds at each station. A few rules: the dried beans or nuts must be cracked before they are dropped in the cup; poker chips must be retrieved without getting hands wet; and no hands allowed!

When time is up, ask each child to dump the contents of their cup into the pie tin and count the number collected. Record the results for each “beak type” on a chart, then rotate to the next station. Repeat the process until each child has tried each tool at every station. By the end, each child will have gone through each station with four different tools.

Discuss the results using the chart as a guide. Help children form the concepts that some beaks are better adapted for certain jobs than others and that, while some beaks are good for obtaining more than one thing, other beaks are good only for one task.

Introduce the photos or drawings, asking the children to talk about how individual beak shapes are adapted for eating certain foods. What happens to a bird when its food source disappears?