Monthly Archives: July 2010

Baby eagles need to learn how to survive in the wild, but they don’t go to school like you. Baby eagles learn from watching their parents.  This is a special animal behaviour called imprinting.

When a baby eagle is only 2 months old he will start watching how his Mummy hunts for food and also how she flies. To help the baby eagle, the Mummy will fly round and round the nest, with food in her claws. This makes the baby eagle curious (and also very hungry!) so he will jump out of the nest and start trying to fly! When the baby eagle is 6 months old he will be an expert flyer.

Do you remember how Enda the eagle couldn’t fly very well so Garth and Bev showed him?

This is how you fly Enda!

Enda figures it out!

Well eagles are funny creatures; because Enda was so young he thought Garth and Bev were his parents!

Go Enda!

Eagles aren’t the only birds that copy what their parents do. Ducks and geese think the first animal they see when they are born is their Mum!  Watch the movie ‘Fly Away Home’ to see how a whole flock of geese thought a kid, just like you, was their Mum!

Did you know?

 A baby eagle in captivity needs to be fed by an eagle hand puppet!  Otherwise the baby eagle gets confused and won’t be able to learn how to fly from real eagles, because he thinks he’s human!

Making a paper aeroplane is very simple and lots of fun!

After you’ve made your plane perhaps you and your friends could have a competition to see who’s plane can fly the farthest!

You could also colour in and decorate your plane, with stickers, crayons, or markers!

Have you got your flying goggles on?

What you’ll need:

Markers, pencils, stickers to decorate

How to do it:

Follow the simple step by step diagram and you’ll be flying in no time!

Ducks are birds that can fly and swim. Look at the duck’s feet. They look different to other birds feet don’t they? Their special feet are called webbed feet and the shape of them helps the duck to swim very well in water. Now watch the baby duck in the video below. See how she is swimming in the pool and yet her feathers still look dry. When you are in the shower or going for a swim your hair gets wet and it takes a while to dry. But when a duck is swimming her feathers stay dry and don’t get wet. I wonder why that is?

How do Ducks Stay Dry?

If you can watch some ducks for a while you might notice that they spend a lot of time nibbling their feathers with their beaks. This is called preening. While the duck is preening she is spreading oil all over her top layer of feathers. The oil comes from a special place near her tail called a gland and when she spreads the oil over her feathers it makes her feathers waterproof. The water can’t get through the first layer of oily feathers and so all of her feathers underneath stay dry and fluffy and keep her warm all over.

What a great idea! It’s like Ducks have their own raincoats that never come off so they can spend all day in the water and not feel cold and wet.

Garth and Bev help out Edna the eagle

Poor little Enda the Eagle, he’s learning how to fly but doesn’t know how to turn and he keeps crashing into things!

Garth and Bev need to discover which feathers Enda should use to turn whilst flying. 

If they can discover something new; Grandfather Lir will send Garth and Bev through the time spiral to meet the inventors who discovered the aeroplane!

Can you discover the names of these two great inventors and learn something new just like Garth and Bev? 

Clue: the two inventors are brothers.

This video is from our YouTube TV Channel:

Answer: Wilbur and Orville Wright

Edison shows off his great invention!

Garth and Bev are painting pictures in Lir’s cave for the Ballybeg Storytelling evening, but no one will see the pictures if they can’t light up the cave! A pesky fly muddling up Garth and Bev’s drawings isn’t helping either, but when the children discover he’s a firefly that can light up the dark they persuade him to bring all his friends! Through the Time Spiral they meet Thomas Edison who is lighting up his world too!

This video is from our Youtube TV Channel:

Do you have a pond near your home where you can watch ducks swimming? Maybe this weekend Mum or Dad could take you there to feed the ducks. Bring some ducky snacks with you and if you’re lucky the brave ducks will waddle right up to you!

Don’t the ducks look cute when they swim? Do you see how their feathers look dry, even though they are in water?

You might be able to see some of the ducks diving into the water to look for food. When they come back to the surface all the water springs off them in a second and they look completely dry! Isn’t that amazing!

Have fun feeding the ducks and don’t forget to look at our Science and Nature post to find out how the ducks stay dry and warm.

Did you Know?

 Bread isn’t good for ducks, it can make them sick!

 Instead of feeding them bread here are some foods ducks love to eat:

• Grapes cut in half (Yum! You might like to eat one half and feed the other half to the ducks!)
• Cracked corn, barley, oats, birdseed or other grains
• Frozen peas that have been defrosted
• Duck feed pellets your parents can get from farm supply stores

Grandfather Lir with his Autumn Leaves collection

A little preview of Garth & Bev It’s the Ballybeg Winter Festival and Grandfather Lir asks Garth and Bev to find a way of displaying his grand collection of autumn leaves. The children accidentally discover that they can suspend them, frozen in ice. Lir is so pleased he sends them to meet Frank Epperson, who got his idea for the ice-lolly from a similar happy accident, when his lemonade froze on the porch overnight!

This video is from our YouTube TV Channel: