Teach the four Story Words with their pictures first: pigeon, head, chick and peck. Every other word on the reading pages uses sounds taught through UFLI Lesson 41 or a Heart Word. Some pages ask the child to read the picture (is its head up? what is on its leg?); the notes at the back give the facts behind those pages so you can answer together. The last pages model a kind hello: sit, never chase a pigeon, and let it peck.
The facts behind the pictures
A walking pigeon’s head is not really bobbing. It holds nearly still in the air while the body steps forward under it, then zips ahead, which keeps the pigeon’s view steady, like a camera held still.
Most birds scoop water and tip their heads back to swallow. A pigeon keeps its beak in the water and sips it up, like drinking through a straw, without lifting its head.
Pigeon parents share the work: the mother and the father take turns sitting on the eggs to keep them warm.
Both pigeon parents, the mother and the father, make “crop milk” in a pouch in the throat called the crop, and feed it to their chicks.
A hidden chick, a way home and a kind hello
A pigeon chick stays tucked in the nest until it is almost fully grown and looks like an adult, which is one reason people hardly ever spot a baby pigeon.
The tube on the leg holds a short note. Homing pigeons fly back to their home loft, so people used them to carry messages, and a famous story says one, Cher Ami, helped save soldiers.
In the study, park pigeons kept avoiding a person who had chased them, even after that person changed coats: the birds told the two people apart. So never chase a pigeon; sit quietly and watch.
Sources: Frost, Journal of Experimental Biology (1978); Troje and Frost (2000); Washington State University, Ask Dr. Universe; Audubon Field Guide; Gillespie et al., PLOS ONE (2012); London Museum; Smithsonian National Museum of American History, Cher Ami; Belguermi et al., Animal Cognition (2011).
Sound out a first bird story with pictured Story Words.
- Ages
- 4–6
- Trim
- 6 × 9 in
- Pages
- 24
- Words
- 108
- Reading grade
- -0.8
See the printed pages
