Bird-watching May Aid Your Child’s Development (NAPSA)—Backyardbird-watching with your children may pay a numberof unexpected dividends. That’s because the early experiences in your children’s lives affect how their brains develop and lay the foundation for intelligence, emotional health and moral development, according to the National Association for the Education of Young Children. This healthy development depends on nurturing and dependablerelationships. “Bird-watching helps meet the needs of developing young minds and can start as soon as a child can walk. It can also help improve the bond between parent and child,” says Stephen Kress, Wingscapes Birding expert and author of several books, including The Audubon Society Guide to Attracting Birds and The Audubon Backyard Birdwatch. Here are a few tips to get kids started in backyard bird-watching to help their development: Hang a bird feeder in your yard where your kids can easily watch it every day. By helping young kids build their own bird feeder, you give them an additional reason to take interest in watching birds. Have your kids keep list of the birds they see and discuss the list each day or week. You can build memoryskills by talking about the birds’ charac- watching in your own backyard. teristics, such as wing color and pattern. You can teach your children about those characteristics with a bird camera, such as_ the Wingscapes BirdCam, a weatherproof, motion-activated digital camera that captures high-resolution photos and videos of birds— even if you are not there. * You can create a scrapbook or even a Website (using free software) with photos or videos of the birds. Get your children to e-mail the images or video clips to a friend or relative or share them on Wingscapes.com, Flickr™, YouTube or other social media Websites. For more information, www.wingscapes.com. visit
