Hello to one and all, welcome back to the best nature program of all! Pull on your coziest layers, grab your best birding guide and tag along for a day in the lives of your Knee High Naturalists.
As Winter begins to wind down and the natural world begins to slowly wake up, we find joy in the new things to experience every day. A chilly morning with the promise of a warm afternoon greeted us, a brisk reminder that Spring hasn’t moved in just yet! Bundled up, we gingerly explored the small amount of icy snow patches left in our morning meeting area. We watched as some of our snow paint was absorbed and tracked the rest as it ran off the piles in little rivers of color. Some of us fished for pike, perch and catfish while other made their own obstacle courses and explored the freshly uncovered ground. Ready to eat snack and enjoy the beautiful weather, we did a speedy round of cleaning and our Good Morning song before heading to the pavilion. We took extra care to walk like penguins and pull the wagon across the ice, making sure we kept each other safe!
Once we got to the pavilion, we quickly lined up all of our backpacks and all washed our hands quicker than we ever have before! For the first time in a while, we didn’t need to use hand warmers or even wear mittens to eat snack as we soaked in the sun. As ornithologists in training, we read two books about birds today. The first book was called Flap Your Wings and Try by Charlotte Pomerantz and we followed along as baby shorebirds and seagulls learned how to fly! The second book was called Plants and Animals in Different Seasons by Kira Freed and we learned how all sorts of different animals prepare for the changing seasons. Today was also the quickest we’ve all eaten snack, ready to color and explore all of our bird specimens!
We got to observe a Barred owl and two Northern goshawks, we were very surprised at how soft they were. While we ate snack, they sat in the sun and we noticed that they were very warm when we touched them. One of our naturalists said that these feathers must keep them really warm! We compared their feet, realizing that the owl had feathered feet but the hawks did not. We talked about how owls can spin their head most of the way around because they can’t move their eyes side to side like humans can. We got a turkey fan, turkey feathers, a turkey wing and a ring necked pheasant’s fan, too. We compared feather from different parts of the bird bodies and noticed that there are many different types and shapes of feather based on their job (flying, warmth, structure)! We also noticed that most of the birds had the same few colors like white, brown, grey and black because they need to blend in to their surroundings. Finally, we got to hold and study a very special bird…a Ruby throated hummingbird! We all took turns very gently passing the hummingbird around and examining it up close. We learned that they have special beaks that are small enough to stick into to flowers and drink their nectar while hawks and owls have sharp beaks like knives. To end our bird study, we got to hold bird bones and talk about how they’re different than most bones. We learned that they are hollow and this is what helps birds fly!
We packed up all of our bird specimens with care, took off a few layers and toe warmers before hitting the trail in search of birds. Our first stop was the overlook where we eagerly perched on the railing, searching the river and bottomlands for any signs of birds or their homes. While we weren’t able to see very many birds, we had so much fun getting warm in the sun and seeing the world from a bird’s point of view! We carefully walked down the trail, stopping at the old porcupine tree to investigate a fallen logs for signs of critters. From his perch, one of our friends found holes from birds high on the Basswood tree! While we couldn’t get close to them, we suspect that a woodpecker of some sort must live there because the holes were very big. We continued on our way, deciding to cut across the small meadow where the sun wash shining and the snow was soft, not slippery.
We immediately flocked to an old bird house we found and pulled out our trusty magnifying glasses to examine it further. We unfortunately did not see any signs of birds living there recently, but we had a lot of fun becoming nature detectives! We spent some time soaking up the sun, exploring the meadow for signs of birds and tracks. We took a small break to investigate the buds on a small oak tree and learn more about them before heading back into the woods to begin our trek back. Once under the canopy of the trees, we discovered an icy trail that we decided to use like a tiny skating rink. We helped our friends cross and showed them how you could “skate”, ready to help at the end of the rink! We stopped to check in on our fort from the fall, very happy to find it all still standing strong. We finished the rest of our journey, slowly making our way back to the pavilion, searching for the softest snow to walk in. We gathered our backpacks and any layers we shed along the way before meeting our families and telling them about our day.
Thank you all for another amazing week in the lives of your Knee High Ornithologists! We hope you can get outside and enjoy the warm weather, we look forward to seeing you next week when we become biologists.
