It’S Smart to Be a Birdbrain: A Collection of “Edu-Tainment” Bird, Wildlife & Nature Tales

By Professor Birdbrain

Comments from Kids of All Ages

It is a Rare and Admirable Educational Effort"
Ms. Ramona Van Riper
*President*National Turkey Vulture Society

"A fun kid's book and you learn a lot about owls"
Allison*Age10*Grade 5*Virginia

"Gaylord the Prairie Dog is tooo cute"
Geri*Age 62 yrs*Office Manager*California

"Albert the Wood Duck is funny and cool, I really liked Albert"
Willie*Age 13 yrs*7th Grade*Florida


"Great Story-Good Facts"
Bob*Age 54*Minister*Wisconsin

"I was thoroughly "Edu-Tained" by the wonderful stories of Professor Birdbrain"
Joanna*Teacher/Educator
*www.mothernaturelive.com*California

"I Think the story is full of facts and that it is a great story"
Mathew*Age 8 yrs*Grade 38*Virginia

"Professor Birbrain's creation and development of Edu-Tainment is an important contribution to educational literature"
Daniel*Age 59 *Recycling Plant Manager*Minnesota

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Apr 14, 2006
• ISBN: 9781467809610

Book preview

© 2006 Professor Birdbrain. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse

ISBN: 1-4259-2618-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4678-0961-0 (ebk)

Printed in the United States of America

Bloomington, Indiana

Contents

Prologue

Dedication

Brainerd the Burrowing Owl

Albert the Wood Duck

Rodney the Red winged Blackbird

Penelope the Brown Pelican

Rupert the Spotted Bat

Marjorie the Killdeer

Radcliff the American Goldfinch

Gaylord the Black-tailed Prairie Dog

Anne-Marie the Atlantic puffin

Rocket Johnny The Peregrine Falcon

The Adventures of Pauline The Park Pigeon

Tandalaya the Turkey Vulture

Epilogue

Edu-Games and Exercises for every Age

About the Author T.J. Moreland Professor Birdbrain

Prologue

What in the heck is this Edu-Tainment stuff anyhow?

Well it is sort of like educational espionage. Edu-tainment allows you to sneak up on unsuspecting people with information they don’t know—but should. Then, while the Edu-tainment victim thinks he or she is being entertained, heh, heh, they are also being educated at the same time. Like I said sneaky, but by golly it works.

Edu-tainment is a word that leaked out of the good professor’s pen a few years ago. He was scratching his head trying to decide what to call storytelling that contains a whole bunch of facts and information, but is delivered in an entertaining, fun and funny format. Then Presto! Edu-tainment— a new concept in reading for kids from 6 to 106. Fun, Facts and a little Fiction. A continuing series.

There are places and websites you can go to obtain facts and stats about birds, animals and nature. Visit www.professorbirdbrain.com and you will find a reliable and useful list of them. But facts are facts and like memorizing the multiplication tables, just plain facts don’t score particularly high on the Fun Meter. Enter stage left, Edu-Tainment. So friends as the good professor would say, Birds and wildlife are the litmus test of our environment. It is important that we learn about theirs to become better stewards of the environment we both share. Read, enjoy, learn, discover, appreciate, conserve, and educate your family and friends to do the same.

Keep your binoculars clean and your sighting journal up to date. Birds and wildlife have been watching us forever—now it’s our turn to watch them.

A Dedication * An Aspiration * A Hope

Dedication: Profound thanks to my faithful, loyal and very intelligent corps of reader/critics for following, advising, criticizing and encouraging each and every story from the first word to the last. A special thanks to Annaker, Farmer Dan and Laurel S.. Thank You and Thank You All.

An Aspiration: In addition to birds and wildlife to stretch the horizons of Professor Birdbrain and his Edu-Tainment stories to issues about our environment that few seem to grasp. What really are watersheds, wetlands, aquifers, creeks, streams and rivers and why are they important? Where did our precious tall grass prairies go, how did our deserts become deserts, what made our mountains grow and why are canyons, canyons? What really is a forest? Our birds, wildlife and natural processes, as well as humans will not survive unless humans learn. To learn about the earth, is to care about the earth. Quotation: TJ Moreland 1999

A Hope: That one day the invisible wall of resistance by educators, publishers, wildlife institutions and others to Educational-Entertainment literature will fall away. Learning can be fun and the following dozen stories will demonstrate that.

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Brainerd the Burrowing Owl

It’s pretty flat terrain in southeast Washington State near the beautiful Columbia River. But if you look around in this desert-like country you can find a few low rocky hills and knolls. If you are lucky some spring morning, you just might spot a small hole in the side of one of those hills. Get down on your knees and look inside. Don’t be surprised to see a half-dozen cute, fuzzy-white Tennis Balls peeping and bobbing up and down. Don’t linger long however, because Mrs. Owl is apt to be returning with breakfast for her baby Burrowing Owls. And you can bet your britches she will be pretty darned annoyed by your unexpected visit.

There are 145 different kinds of owls all over the world and some are very large with huge wingspans nearly five feet. There are Screech Owls, Snowy Owls, Spotted Owls, Barn Owls and even Eagle Owls. They all have big beautiful eyes. You have heard the expression See like an Eagle? Well seeing like an Owl is even better because they can see at night too. Owls also have a keen sense of hearing. All Owls, including Burrowing Owls, are members of larger family know as Raptors. Burrowing Owls live mostly in the western parts of North America. One of these types of Owls that lives there is named Brainerd. And if Burrowing Owls played basketball, Brainerd would always be the last one picked—because he is really, really short. Full-grown Burrowing Owls only grow to be about 8 inches from top to bottom, end to end and stem to stern—like I said, Short, real Short!

Brainerd didn’t stay a