Did you know … February is National Bird Feeding Month?

In February of 1994, Illinois Representative John Porter read a proclamation on the floor of the US House of Representatives encouraging individuals “…to provide food, water, and shelter to help wild birds survive” during the month of February. He went on to list the benefits of backyard bird-feeding to both children and adults, including:

• relaxation and stress-relief
• education and research opportunities
• and bonding between parent and child.

In the past few years, as quarantine and shelter-in-place orders have left millions of people around the world stuck at home, the popularity of feeding backyard birds has once again soared. “While experts disagree whether backyard bird feeding will significantly help bird populations,” the Humane Society reminds us that “bird feeding is most helpful at times when birds need the most energy, such as during temperature extremes, migration, and in late winter or early spring, when natural seed sources are depleted.”

Whether you have a feathered friend that’s part of your family, a bird-watching or bird-feeding hobby, or your child’s recent school project about birds, they all deserve a place in your scrapbook. Here are products you’ll find in the Shoppe to help capture and record these memories … and don’t forget to read to the end of this post, where you’ll find quotes you can use on your next bird-themed layout.

Quotes for your next bird-themed layout:

• Tame birds sing of freedom. Wild birds fly. – John Lennon
• In order to see birds, it is necessary to become a part of the silence. – Robert Lynd
• Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly. – Langston Hughes
• Until you spread your wings; you’ll have no idea how far you can fly.
• Birds sing after a storm; why shouldn’t people feel as free to delight in whatever sunlight remains to them? – Rose Kennedy
• No bird can fly without opening its wings, and no one can love without exposing their hearts. – Mark Nepo
• There are no birds in last year’s nest. – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• If you want to fly, give up everything that weighs you down.
• A bird sitting on a tree is never afraid of the branch breaking, because her trust is not on the branch but on her own wings.
• A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song. – Maya Angelou