celebrating the end of the school year and the solstice at the same time! last thursday, we--lenny, christian, and i--got in one more field trip to the town natural area. we took a 6th grade class on a loop from the pull off over to the nature hut and then back out to rt. 4. we elevated the presentation we had been giving the younger grades and spent some great observation, question, and answer time, both outside and in.
starting off with a bang, lenny pulled a black and white warbler out of a cloth bird-bag and after a brief introduction, let three or four students hold it in their 'hand's. it was definitely worth at least "two in the bush"...we showed everyone how we had been capturing birds in a mist net and explained banding them. on CAWA (canada warbler) males that had never been caught before, he and christian have been placing geolocators to track their migration paths. i got to cut three or four of the 'little backpacks' off of returning males, caught, banded, and set up with the locators last year. the devices are sent into the company that makes them and the bird's path is downloaded--way cool.
we stopped once before the beaver dam for my LNT spiel, and a short bit on plant life in a wetland forest. when i drew four lines across the white board for the typical bottom to top layers found in a forest, i asked for ideas on how else could a wooded environment be divided up. we got some way creative answers along with the two that i wanted to expand upon--horizontally, from in to out, and time-wise. the black and white warbler, BAWW, was a perfect species to look at for understanding how some bird species not only focus their activities higher or lower in a tree, but closer in or further out from the trunk. the black and white forages directly on the trunks of trees while other species prefer the outer branches. the owl vs a hawk were great examples of two animals in a very similar niche only at different times.
When we stopped on the old beaver dam, we discussed the idea that like animals, plants also had preferred habitats, in this case 'wet feet' vs 'dry feet'. on the deeper side of the dam, several dead maples and a whole bunch of healthy alders, indicated which ones preferred putting down roots in super saturated soil under standing water. looking out from the boardwalk over the dam, we saw a couple of tiny birds flitting about and heard a northern waterthrush singing his territorial song. one of lenny's first big studies after grad school was done on the northern warterthrush.
when we got to the nature hut the students immediately crowded around the specimen trays, pointing and exclaiming...christian and lenny had dip-netted all kinds of critters from two different ponds and two vernal pools out in the woods at lenny's. eastern newts, crayfish, wood frog tadpoles, a pickerel frog, caddis fly larvae, a water beetle, mosquito larvae, damsel fly larvae, and more than likely at least several species i can't remember or didn't see, were divided up in the trays according to where they were found. it was an intense hands on session with many student questions and nearly as many student answers.
eggs on the underside of at least one crayfish were discovered, the caddisfly casing was closely examined, a newts 'artistic' red spots were admired, all sorts of information was shared around. bio-mimicry, symbiosis, vernal, genetic variability, were some of the bigger words i remember being discussed.
as we walked out of the woods we stopped at a tree with several types of lichen and got in a final mini-lesson before boarding the bus. it was a fine day to be out, curious in the woods.
speaking of getting out, on friday i went up the south ridge trail on cardigan and hooked a right onto the skyland trail. craig sanborn and i, as cardigan highlander volunteer trail crew, were checking out the bigger 'mud hole' just below orange mtn summit. we spent an hour ditching and such to try and drain things a bit, but it is one of those problem spots. when i got back to the summer parking lot on the west side of the park i put in some time in 'friends of mount cardigan' mode: mowing, picking up trash, and sprucing up the bathrooms.
on saturday our friend souke came up from the boston area and got in a couple days in the north country. there was plenty of porch time along with a great little hike around one of the shaker wildlife management area trails. it was somewhat remarkable how dry things were where normally it was not. i got a funny picture of the two women checking a phone--something about arranging a swim and dinner with sadie for fathers' day!
the summer solstice fell on the same day the full-moonrise sunset happened. i went up and hung out in the parking lot to see if any students from MOC came up. at a bit past 7pm, i started up. i met some old friends half way and slowed a bit to hike along with them. betsy and bill live just over the river in vermont and it seems like i see them on these full moon hikes every couple of years or so. the reason i hadn't seen them in a while was that betsy is recovering from rebuilding her feet. i think bill's description was "when she used to be hiking north, her feet were headed east and west!" she was trooping along with dozens of solstice celebrators. at the summit i saw a few other familiar faces and spoke with people who knew a lot of my old friends. the most amazing part, at least to me, was the food folks were pulling out of their bags...
i am pretty sure bill's neck is not always in this position, but his posture kept the container of curried chicken, closer to his mouth.
substantial cloud banks kept us from seeing the sun and moon directly at the horizons, but we still got a bit of a show, at least to the west.
i always appreciate being atop a mountain to see the day leaving and night coming on. a good amount of wind kept any bugs away even on the descent down below treeline. those western clouds spoke of a later storm scheduled to come through after midnight. i imagine that nobody would complain about some wetness to keep the dust down in folks gardens. as i tossed my pack into the back of the truck, i caught a bit of light from the moon popping above the trees and through the eastern cloud bank.
a fine end to spring...hoping the summer was a good one.
starting off with a bang, lenny pulled a black and white warbler out of a cloth bird-bag and after a brief introduction, let three or four students hold it in their 'hand's. it was definitely worth at least "two in the bush"...we showed everyone how we had been capturing birds in a mist net and explained banding them. on CAWA (canada warbler) males that had never been caught before, he and christian have been placing geolocators to track their migration paths. i got to cut three or four of the 'little backpacks' off of returning males, caught, banded, and set up with the locators last year. the devices are sent into the company that makes them and the bird's path is downloaded--way cool.
we stopped once before the beaver dam for my LNT spiel, and a short bit on plant life in a wetland forest. when i drew four lines across the white board for the typical bottom to top layers found in a forest, i asked for ideas on how else could a wooded environment be divided up. we got some way creative answers along with the two that i wanted to expand upon--horizontally, from in to out, and time-wise. the black and white warbler, BAWW, was a perfect species to look at for understanding how some bird species not only focus their activities higher or lower in a tree, but closer in or further out from the trunk. the black and white forages directly on the trunks of trees while other species prefer the outer branches. the owl vs a hawk were great examples of two animals in a very similar niche only at different times.
When we stopped on the old beaver dam, we discussed the idea that like animals, plants also had preferred habitats, in this case 'wet feet' vs 'dry feet'. on the deeper side of the dam, several dead maples and a whole bunch of healthy alders, indicated which ones preferred putting down roots in super saturated soil under standing water. looking out from the boardwalk over the dam, we saw a couple of tiny birds flitting about and heard a northern waterthrush singing his territorial song. one of lenny's first big studies after grad school was done on the northern warterthrush.
when we got to the nature hut the students immediately crowded around the specimen trays, pointing and exclaiming...christian and lenny had dip-netted all kinds of critters from two different ponds and two vernal pools out in the woods at lenny's. eastern newts, crayfish, wood frog tadpoles, a pickerel frog, caddis fly larvae, a water beetle, mosquito larvae, damsel fly larvae, and more than likely at least several species i can't remember or didn't see, were divided up in the trays according to where they were found. it was an intense hands on session with many student questions and nearly as many student answers.
eggs on the underside of at least one crayfish were discovered, the caddisfly casing was closely examined, a newts 'artistic' red spots were admired, all sorts of information was shared around. bio-mimicry, symbiosis, vernal, genetic variability, were some of the bigger words i remember being discussed.
as we walked out of the woods we stopped at a tree with several types of lichen and got in a final mini-lesson before boarding the bus. it was a fine day to be out, curious in the woods.
speaking of getting out, on friday i went up the south ridge trail on cardigan and hooked a right onto the skyland trail. craig sanborn and i, as cardigan highlander volunteer trail crew, were checking out the bigger 'mud hole' just below orange mtn summit. we spent an hour ditching and such to try and drain things a bit, but it is one of those problem spots. when i got back to the summer parking lot on the west side of the park i put in some time in 'friends of mount cardigan' mode: mowing, picking up trash, and sprucing up the bathrooms.
on saturday our friend souke came up from the boston area and got in a couple days in the north country. there was plenty of porch time along with a great little hike around one of the shaker wildlife management area trails. it was somewhat remarkable how dry things were where normally it was not. i got a funny picture of the two women checking a phone--something about arranging a swim and dinner with sadie for fathers' day!
the summer solstice fell on the same day the full-moonrise sunset happened. i went up and hung out in the parking lot to see if any students from MOC came up. at a bit past 7pm, i started up. i met some old friends half way and slowed a bit to hike along with them. betsy and bill live just over the river in vermont and it seems like i see them on these full moon hikes every couple of years or so. the reason i hadn't seen them in a while was that betsy is recovering from rebuilding her feet. i think bill's description was "when she used to be hiking north, her feet were headed east and west!" she was trooping along with dozens of solstice celebrators. at the summit i saw a few other familiar faces and spoke with people who knew a lot of my old friends. the most amazing part, at least to me, was the food folks were pulling out of their bags...
i am pretty sure bill's neck is not always in this position, but his posture kept the container of curried chicken, closer to his mouth.
substantial cloud banks kept us from seeing the sun and moon directly at the horizons, but we still got a bit of a show, at least to the west.
i always appreciate being atop a mountain to see the day leaving and night coming on. a good amount of wind kept any bugs away even on the descent down below treeline. those western clouds spoke of a later storm scheduled to come through after midnight. i imagine that nobody would complain about some wetness to keep the dust down in folks gardens. as i tossed my pack into the back of the truck, i caught a bit of light from the moon popping above the trees and through the eastern cloud bank.
a fine end to spring...hoping the summer was a good one.
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