Hungry Baby Birds

Hungry Baby Birds - Use the momma clothespins to feed the baby birds

Not having had a chance to go out for anything for what is beginning to feel like f-o-r-e-v-e-r, I took to Amazon and looked for a couple of new games to be delivered to my kids. Hungry Baby Birds caught my attention because of the clothespins, which you don't often see in games, so I ordered it.

When Hungry Baby Birds arrived, I carried the box into the house and it felt so light I wondered if it was empty. It wasn't. The game base, the nest, which I thought would be a heavy, solid plastic is actually made of a very lightweight plastic that is kind of brittle. If someone was rough with it, threw it, sat on it, accidentally stepped on it, etc., it would be over. The birds are printed on a light card stock and that picture just sits on top of the nest. That part I expected.

The worms are made of the same type of squishy plastic that fishing worms are made of, only much shorter, measuring 2.25" long. There are four different worm colors that match the four colors of the clothespins.

The clothespins were the biggest disappointment. They are made of a very lightweight, smooth wood material and instead of having a metal spring on them, like real clothespins do, the two pieces are held together with an elastic cord. When you squeeze the clothespin to open it, it only opens 3/16" of an inch. This is not even wide enough to pick up the worm. If you position the open clothespin above the worm at it's tail, the smallest end, and then push down on the worm with the clothespin, you can wedge it into the tip of the clothespin. Now you are faced with the problem of how to drop the worm out of the clothespin, since it won't open any further. To drop something out you would have to be able to open the clothespin a little wider than you need to pick up the worm.

I don't always read the game instructions because I often look at the pieces first and make up my own games with them, or I can easily tell how to play just looking at the contents. Then I read the instructions when I blog about it. So when I tried the clothespins I wrote a post about how disappointing it was and took the steps to return it to Amazon. Then I decided I might as well read the instructions while I have it and write them out here, just in case someone would want to know. The very first thing I read on the instructions changed my mind about the game. Here is the image I saw:

So instead of holding the clothespin at the wide end, you hold it at the closed end. Something just felt "not right" about it at first, but I got used to it and it works. We'll see how the kids do with it. When you look at the clothespin in the image at the top of the page, think of it as a momma bird with an eye and a long, wide, open beak. Pick up the worm with the beak end, and hover over a baby bird and drop it in.

Like I mentioned, the whole game is super lightweight, but if you are careful about the nest you will be OK. Even if you break it, you could go to the dollar store and get a package of those clear drinking cups or storage containers, position four on the table so that you can place the bird card on top and each opening will be over a cup. Then feed the birds and you can even watch the worms fall into the cups.

Object:
Be the first to find and feed all your color worms to your baby bird.

Set up:
Place the nest between the players and put the bird card on top. Scatter the colored worms. Let each player choose a color and give them the matching momma bird clothespin. Demonstrate how to hold and use it. 

The instructions suggest spreading the worms around the room and then standing while dropping them into the nest.

Play:
On go, all players scatter to search for their worms, bringing them back to the nest one at a time and dropping them into the birdies mouth of the matching color. Play until someone has found and dropped all the worms of their color. Count the worms that made it into the correct colored cup for each player. The player with the most worms that made it into the nest is the winner.

Try this:

• Play sitting down first to get used to the game before trying to do it standing up where it might be harder to hit the opening when dropping the worms.
• Try different ways of holding the momma bird. Since the wood is rather smooth, I found it easier for me to hold the part with the eye in my palm for better control, instead of it resting on the top of my hand as in the image above.
• Don't match by color, just pick them up and drop them into any color. You will have a better chance of hitting something if you have four options for places to drop them.
• Play on the table top. Scatter the worms on the table and call out colors, one at a time, as the player picks up and feeds the bird a worm of that color. Or scatter them and ask the player to feed all the blue, then all the green, etc.
• Scatter the worms on the table. Let the player pick up the worms in any order and then call each color as they drop it into the nest.
• Skip the clothespin and sort the worms into the nest by color using your fingers.
• Place the worms around the room in visible places but in locations that will requiring reaching and bending.

In the box: Game base, 40 worms (10 each of 4 colors), 4 clothespins (color match the worm colors)

If you are interested in purchasing this game or just want more information, click on the image below.