Outdoor Nature Hour: red-winged blackbirds & this little piggy ...

Our mission from Handbook of Nature Study today was to study red-winged blackbirds, blackbirds and cowbirds. Eh, I just went for the red-winged blackbirds because I knew we'd find some on our walk up the road.
First, we had to stop by our neighbor's and look at his new pigs, especially "Sausage." Those tusks are formidable! I'm reminded of why the farm hands panicked when Dorothy fell in the piggery. Yikes.Of course, ever since we saw this baby pot-bellied arrive, Hayes and I have been bugging Alex for a pig.
On down the road we went and came across our study subject by one of our neighbor's ponds, just like the Handbook of Nature Study said it would be. We didn't read up on this bird until after watching it so we failed to notice the female, which is a dull speckled brown. I'm sure she was around because Hayes was repeating the calls back to this male.
Hayes did spot a nest way up in a tree but we couldn't see what kind of bird. She was feeding babies though.
And almost home, Hayes spotted this chipmunk acting like a statue. That was a lot of fun!
Once home and having completed our HNS reading on the red-winged blackbird and an Eyewitness book on the bird's sense of seeing and hearing (both quite acute), Hayes colored a picture of the bird from the Cornell University site; however, instead of using black because there wasn't a black crayon pencil in the cup, she used blue. I told her she was going to have to redo it. She said it was "creative."
Once inside she wanted to proceed with her Ancient Egypt study by mummifying a body on the computer.
The process of emptying out the brains was met with "ewwwww" by us both!