Review: Your Backyard

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A couple of weeks ago I introduced you to Crowe’s Nest Media, via the Homeschool Showcase.  Crowe’s Nest Media is the family-run business of the Crowe’s, a homeschooling family who have just released their first DVD, Your Backyard, a young beginner’s guide to identifying 18 common feeder birds.

After the Homeschool Showcase published, I was contacted by the Crowe’s about reviewing Your Backyard and hosting a giveaway and I jumped at the chance to do so.  I love birdwatching, but recognize very few birds by sight or sound.  We have a feeder right outside our dining room window and the kids will often look up from schoolwork to see birds at the feeder.  We’ll all stop whatever we’re doing to watch them and it’s never just an excuse to stop working; we’re all just fascinated by birds.  So I thought this DVD would be something the whole family could learn from and enjoy.

I was absolutely delighted with Your Backyard, which is hosted by the young Crowe children. (I was not at all only slightly biased by the fact that Taylor, Samuel, and Grace are two red-heads and a blond, just like my kiddos.)  The young narrators did a fabulous job hosting the 58-minute DVD.  I can only begin to imagine the incredible lessons the Crowe family has learned together in producing Your Backyard.  If you get a chance, I highly recommend that you read their story.

Your Backyard introduces eighteen birds of the Eastern and Central United States, showing each up close in live action, so you can watch the bird and hear its sound.  For most birds, there are at least two sounds represented, their song and their call.  One of the bonus features explains why birds sing and why they have different sounds.  Not only do you see and hear the birds as you learn to identify them, but the Crowe kids offer tips for remembering the sounds, such as pointing out words that the sounds may seem to mimic.  All of this from a delightfully unabashed Christian, creationist perspective.

Viewers will also be introduced to Professor Solomon, the owl who gives more information about many of the birds featured.  Your family will enjoy taking Professor Solomon’s interactive bird quiz to test your knowledge about the birds introduced in the video.  Viewers young and old will learn even more through DVD features including:

  • a bird range map
  • a look at all the different birds in the video set to the music of Amazing Grace — a fun way to practice your bird identification skills
  • instructions for making homemade feeders, so you can begin attracting feeder birds to your backyard
  • the history of John James Audubon

I love the way Your Backyard is organized.  The DVD chapters are broken down by bird colors — black birds, red birds, blue birds — making it easy to quickly go to the right spot for identifying unfamiliar birds that you may spot in your yard.  At only $19.95, Your Backyard offers beginning birdwatchers of all ages a unique method of learning to recognize such birds as:

  • American Goldfinch
  • Baltimore Oriole
  • Chickadee
  • Song Sparrow
  • Tufted Titmouse
  • White-breaded Nuthatch
  • and many more!

The family behind Crowe’s Nest Media did a wonderful job putting together their first “God-honoring, family strengthening” film and I look forward to many more educational DVDs from them. 

I received this product free for the purpose of reviewing it.  I received no other compensation for this review.  The opinions expressed in this review are my personal, honest opinions.  Your experience may vary.

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Kris Bales is a newly-retired homeschool mom and the quirky, Christ-following, painfully honest founder (and former owner) of Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. She has a pretty serious addiction to sweet tea and Words with Friends. Kris and her husband of over 30 years are parents to three amazing homeschool grads. They share their home with three dogs, two cats, a ball python, a bearded dragon, and seven birds.

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40 Comments

  1. We see mostly house sparrows at our feeder, but we have the occasional cardinal and the kids love seeing how brightly colored they are.

  2. My girls would love this! We are using Apologia's Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day for science this year. Your Backyard would compliment our studies. 🙂 Thanks for hosting a great giveaway!

  3. What a great family project they came up with!! And an awesome giveaway! This would be a great lerning tool for our girls (and me as well). Cardinals are my favorite by sight, no clue what it sounds like 🙂

  4. This looks WONDERFUL!!!

    We have cardinals like crazy lately…but I am wanting to get some special hummingbird feeders soon. I just love hummingbirds!

    Jolanthe

  5. I'm still trying to figure out what birdfeeder we want, but we get the occasional grackle, and once in a very rare time we get a cardinal.

  6. We love chickadees, though we don't see very many of them anymore since West Nile Virus hit our area a few years back. My sons would love this DVD.

    thecurryseven (at) sbcgloblal (dot) net

  7. We have tons of birds at our house because we have so many trees. I would love to have this for my son.
    Thanks for the giveaway.

  8. We are doing Adventures in MFW this year and this would be great with our bird study!

    If I had to pick one I guess the Blue Jay would be my favorite- it is one of the few I can identify. Thanks for hosting the give away.

  9. Well, its really hard to pick just one bird. I have two favs actually. One would be the hummingbirds. They amuse as all summer long with their amazing flight acrobatics. Then, there are the bluebirds that nest in our backyard and come to sit on top of the feeder and then proceed to the cat food bowl on the deck. They eat cat food all day long! They even bring their babies to show them where the food can be found! We would love to win this video as we're avid bird watchers and are currently studying them! Thanks!!

  10. Cardinals are our favorites! The boys get so excited when they see them. Thanks for hosting the giveaway – the video looks awesome!

  11. We see a lot of cardinals, robins, sparrows, and black-capped chickadees. I'd love to be able to identify more with my girls. This seems like the kind of video my kids will watch over and over and over again, especially my middle one.

    kymberlie {at} stefanskis [dot] net

  12. I love Bluejays. They sound like creaking swings in the summer time, reminds me of being little and swinging at the park.

  13. Hands down, the Carolina Chickadee… or maybe the Tufted Titmouse… or the Cardinal… or the Song Sparrow… or the pair of goldfinches… Oh, do I HAVE to pick a favorite? We just love watching them all!

  14. Favorite feeder bird? Hmmm… I love hawks and eagles, but they aren't exactly feeder birds. We have a flock of turkeys wandering through each winter. We don't deliberately feed them, but they like the poultry food which sometimes ends up spilled on the ground. 🙂 I have a soft spot for hummingbirds since the time one perched on my finger instead of the feeder perch! Too totally cool!!!

  15. I'd love to win a copy of Your Backyard; it looks great! My favorite backyard bird is the Tufted Titmouse b/c it reminds me of my grandmother's backyard. My daughter votes for Mourning Doves.

  16. My daughter would love this! She and my DH built a birdhouse together as part of our Apologia Flying Creatures study and she loves to look for birds. I'd have to go with hummingbirds as our favorites — we have feeders as well as a bleeding heart bush that really attracts them. Thanks!

  17. Our favorite feeder bird is the red winged black bird. We typically only see them in the fall, and their song is beautiful.

  18. This looks absolutely wonderful! One of our favorite birds is the house wren ~ although we love all of our feathered friends!

  19. My boys love House Sparrows and American Goldfinch.

    The are nature and bird book nuts, and would love this!

    You can email me through my profile if needed, and thank you for offering this!

  20. Our favorite bird that comes to our birdfeeder is the black capped chickadee. But we enjoy watching all of them! ~Jackie

  21. My kids love it when we get the chance to spot hummingbirds. Not as often recently since we just moved and no longer have flowers. We need to fix that problem soon. 🙂

  22. Thanks so much for this review and for the chance to win a copy! We LOVE birdwatching and I think we would really enjoy this dvd.

    My favorite feeder bird is the goldfinch.

  23. Sounds like a wonderful video. We forgot to refill our feeder this summer and just thought about it recently. Poor birds have never returned 🙁 Hopefully by spring they will be back for us to watch and with this dvd we would know what we are looking at :).

  24. I love our finches, especially the goldfinches, and the hummingbirds. They are also two of only a handful of birds I can identify by sight. 🙂

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