Kid Stuff
Nurturing Nature
By: Carol Suits
Liberty Wildlife Volunteer
Announcing Our 2023 Fall Programming for Kids
This year we are expanding and specializing our monthly program. Each session will encourage kids to explore the natural world, and discover ways they can help nature.
Join a Liberty Wildlife Kids’ Program
Explore nature’s wonders through meaningful and fun activities!
Be a Superhero!
Grades 1 – 3 8:30 – 9:30
Visit with our animal Ambassadors!
Listen, explore, and learn about nature!
Be a Nature Explorer!
Grades 4 – 6 10:00 – 12:00
Explore ways to help wildlife!
Participate in hands-on activities to make a difference!
Meetings are usually the third Saturday each month starting in September.
Classes are limited to 10 participants.
Sign up now for fall sessions
For more information and to apply please contact
Carol Suits
Discover Nature Outside
What would you do if………………………..
https://rangerrick.org/nature/wildlife-encounters-what-would-you-do/
Hint: click on your answer. Green is good and sometimes there’s more than one right answer.
Discover Nature from Home
This is a great time of year to check out live animal cams! Animals born in the spring are growing and learning skills to help them survive as adults. Let’s look in on a few of them!
https://sdzsafaripark.org/cams/condor-cam San Diego Safari Park has many live cams. I clicked on this one and thought it wasn’t live because no one was moving. Then the baby wiggled! The baby condor chick is fuzzy and being raised by foster condors that cannot be released back to the wild.
https://www.explore.org/livecams/currently-live/osprey-cam-chesapeake-conservancy This site has a ton of live cams. I picked my favorite hawk, the osprey, and saw the young osprey, almost fully feathered, starting to figure out how to use those big wings of his!
You may have to search for babies still in the nest, not yet fledged. Otherwise, most sites made videos for you to see what happened. Here’s a good one.
https://mailchi.mp/cornell/red-tailed-hawk-fledgling-fun?e=c367ab8cbf This is a story called “Fledgling Fun With the Cornell Hawks” that shows three red-tailed hawk chicks named M1, M2, and M3, nesting and fledging above Cornell University’s campus.
The Superheroes have been meeting Liberty Wildlife Ambassadors each month, learning about the species and the natural history of each animal. We’ve listened, asked questions, and drawn pictures of each Ambassador. I’ll bet you can draw this little pollinator.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SA6Dt7ndmyM&list=UUuLXeJAKL-FL-wJBNqLbubQ
Puzzles!
https://www.jigsawplanet.com/?rc=play&pid=2519606add29
https://www.jigsawplanet.com/?rc=play&pid=1b513d1a72a4
Let’s celebrate National Honey Bee Day – August 20, 2023
https://www.jigsawplanet.com/?rc=play&pid=3ce44da2a357
Meet Another Education Ambassador
By Claudia Kirscher
Liberty Wildlife Volunteer
Chili is a female Red-shouldered Hawk who came to Liberty in 2022 with a left wing injury. She was transferred to us from another rescue facility in Yuma.
This hawk is a medium-sized buteo, smaller than a Red-tailed Hawk and larger than a Broad-winged Hawk. They are found in Eastern North America, along the coast of California, and northern to northeast Mexico.
In recent years, the Red-shouldered Hawk has nested sporadically along the Hassayampa River (western Maricopa County) in very small numbers and occasionally elsewhere in Arizona as a transient.
They are one of the more-distinctively-marked hawks, colorful, with dark and white checkered 
wings and reddish barring on the chest.
They prefer deciduous wetlands near rivers and swamps, hunting small mammals, amphibians, and reptiles.
Come on down to visit and hear Chili’s story!
Water Features (cont.)
By Gail Cochrane
Liberty Wildlife Volunteer
Last month on this page we highlighted some of the water features Liberty Wildlife volunteers have installed in their yards and gardens, and this month we are continuing with more. Providing water is a gift of life for wildlife. Yes, it can be a chore to keep those bird baths and fountains filled with clean fresh water, but observation reveals the numbers of birds that appreciate your efforts.
Thank you to these volunteers for their commitment to providing water for wildlife, and for sharing their pictures and stories with us.
Carol Suits: I had a birdbath in the back of my property but moved it and added a “wildlife fountain”. The property backs up to a wash that’s about 40’ across and 10’ deep. Great wildlife run! Last summer the cooper’s hawk (we named Mara) was there daily.
Carolyn LeBlanc: We installed an elevated water garden packed with butterfly weed, so there are hundreds of Queen butterflies and occasionally monarchs. We planted milkweed all over the area nearby. The water garden has a waterfall down to a shaded steam. The stream feeds into a pond with koi, and seasonally lots of Colorado river roads. We get tons of birds visiting too.
Liz Farquahar: We have a 15 foot organic stream that has a little waterfall and pool at one end. We get amazing birds during migration (I think we are on the map!) And our resident birds aren’t too shabby either. See the Western Tanager visiting.
Marie Provine: This fountain is in my backyard under a ficus tree. That causes some problems, because the ficus leaves seem to find the fountain and block the pump fairly easily, but it also gives me an opportunity to visit the fountain regularly to make sure it has water and a clear pump. Lots of birds visit the fountain every day, including hummingbirds, who catch the drips from the upper part to the lower fountain.
Julia Lehman: I have several watering areas around my small backyard for mainly the birds and often in late summer for the bees! We also, leave a hose drip on the edge of the swimming pool, and it’s a hit with the doves as they are able to suck a cool drink up now and then. The best and most frequently used water feature however are my “Arizona sized” home-made ant moats holding my hummingbird feeders below.
Ginny Chaussee: My pond is the watering hole for the neighborhood birds here in Chandler.
Ceci Hampson-Ellis: This crane made a spring visit to Liberty Wildlife’s riparian area.
Jen Lemionet: We found this guy sitting on a water bowl in our neighbor’s yard! Think it’s a Cooper’s Hawk – very cool to see in a North Central Phoenix neighborhood – just beautiful!
Jack Guinan sends this photo of a Curved-bill Thrasher at his mid-town Phoenix back yard.
