Blue Jay photo by Dawn Huczek via Creative Commons Having fun birdwatching yet? (Read my last 2 posts for great birdwatching information) Here are 10 species of birds that you might find in your backyard (Eastern and Central US): Robin: Gray on top and orange on belly. Medium sized; bigger than small songbirds and smaller than crows or geese. Like to look for worms on the ground. Cardinal: Males are bright red all over with a black face. Females are brown with a red beak. Both have a crest(a pointy hat shape) on their heads. Cardinals are medium sized. Blue Jay: Blue, white, and black. Medium sized. Has a crest. Chipping sparrow: Small sparrows with brown and white streaks and stripes. Large reddish-brown cap on their heads with white and black next to it. House Finch: Small finch with brown and white streaks. Males have red on their head and belly. Females don’t, but if you see one with a male house finch you can probably assume that she’s a house finch too. Black-capped Chickadee: Small bird. Black cap on head with white face and tan belly. Common Grackle: Medium sized bird. Black, with shiny green and purple head feathers that you can see sometimes. Yellow and black eyes. Canada Goose: Goose with black neck and head, brown back, white belly, and webbed feet. They swim in water. They honk. You can see them flying together in a v shape. Crow: Large and black. Makes classic “caw” sound Vulture: Very large, black, with pink head. Flies in circles.
Young Bloggers
Video Game Review: The Legend of Zelda, Breath of the Wild
Image by Eric Holsinger via Creative Commons The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild (BOTW) video game recently came out and already people are falling in love with it. I play it on the Nintendo Switch. First, let’s talk about the things that make it AMAZING!!. BOTW is a mega open world game, I’m not even joking. The map is 120x bigger than a regular U.S map, making it a long game that will leave you exploring for hours. You are Link and your goal is to defeat Ganon (he is the bad guy) and rescue the beautiful Princess Zelda. There are a variety of things that Link can collect to help him on his adventure. For example, Korok seeds. They expand your inventory. The bad news is once you collect all 900, you get Hestu’s gift which is poop! The graphics are also brilliant– not only are the natural surroundings lush and green, but the characters like the Lynel (centaur), Hinox (cyclops) and the Molduga (giant sand fish) look scary and powerful. BOTW is also unique compared to a lot of other open-world games because you can play the game in any order – in other words you play the story line starting at the beginning, the middle, or the end. For instance you can just fight Ganon, the villain, at the beginning of the game! (But I wouldn’t do that if I were you because you would die in seconds!). It also features tons of tricky challenges that make the game hard to complete in one sitting. If you do truly want to complete the game, you’ll be surprised by how long it will take you. It took me 30-40 days to complete the main storyline!!! Now let’s talk about the game’s faults. First the bosses. The bosses are challenging don’t get me wrong, but they are predictable. Each one is just a different form of Ganon. For example, one of the bosses is called Windblight Ganon and he does moves that are “windlike”. The same goes for Waterblight Ganon, Thunderblight Ganon, and Fireblight Ganon. You get the picture? Another problem is that the characters and their dialogue sometimes don’t make any sense. Like for instance, the characters who die come back as memories to Link. One of those memories is called Subdued Ceremony. In that memory the characters talk unlike normal people using fancy words and sentences. But all in all BOTW is a game that is age-appropriate for most children. There’s no blood or gore when fighting monsters or enemies, though there is combat. BOTW won The Game Of The Year in 2017 and I can see why. It is a challenging and cool mega-puzzle game packed with action and adventure at every turn. So go out and tell your mom or dad, “ I want this game right now!” Have fun!
The Scarlet Letter, Auggie Pullman, Middle School and the Meaning of Acceptance
Illustration from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s ‘The Scarlet Letter’ (James R. Osgood and Company, 1878), courtesy of commons.wikimedia.org Have you ever met someone who seemed to accept everyone just as they are? Have you ever felt that way yourself? When I read the Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, I found this acceptance in the main character, Hester Prynne. The Scarlet Letter is about a Puritan woman named Hester Prynne who commits adultery and is scorned and ousted by her society. The book follows Hester’s life and the community around her, which includes her “illegitimate” daughter Pearl; her legal husband, Roger Chillingworth; the father of Pearl, who happens to be the local Puritan minister, Arthur Dimmesdale; and the local Puritan community. Hawthorne paints the Puritan community to highlight how extremely judgmental it was. When the community finds out about Hester’s “crime”, they kick her out and scorn her and her daughter’s existence. However, Hester accepts her fate and continues to treat her community with respect. She accepts the scarlet “A” that her community required her to wear to signify her adultery, and turns it into something beautiful, both literally through her embroidery and figuratively through her acceptance of her past behavior. Hester exudes acceptance, both in her fate and the way that she treats the people around her–presenting a model that is especially relevant today when many tend toward othering–the separation of yourself from a certain group of people and calling them different. Acceptance is particularly significant in my life as a middle schooler because in middle school children tend to stop accepting people as much and start judging who they are and what they want to be. I realize that I become judgmental when I see people on their phones constantly. Because my family values being present in the moment and trying not to focus on phones and computers, when I see someone on their phone my instinct causes me to judge them. I have to resist this reaction because it creates distance between myself and other people and focuses on the negative. When I look past this difference, I can focus on getting to know them as an individual. Everyone knows that you should accept people who are different and just accept people in general. Hester’s acceptance goes beyond that. She puts aside her community’s judgement and approaches them with open arms and forgiveness. August Pullman in Wonder by R. J. Palacio, also expresses this bottomless kindness. Mr. Tushman, August’s principal, sums up this world view: “Always be a little kinder than necessary.” In middle school, perhaps we need to not only focus on accepting others who are different from us but also forgiving those who judge us. Are there ways that you are judged by your peers? Are there ways you convince yourself to accept others in the face of feeling judgmental? Are there times you have reached across perceived differences and have connected with someone you didn’t expect to? I’d love to hear from you–please leave a comment below.
