Schoolyard Naturalists

Still on the Move

2011-10-19T08:09:00.000-07:00

Now that we are well into autumn, migration is in full swing. Many creatures headed south weeks ago. Among the first were the tree swallows. Think back to the last days of August and you might recall seeing many dozens of swallows lined up on phone lines as they prepared to leave for points south. Another traveler is the common nighthawk. I remember watching and hearing nighthawks when I was growing up. These would be found in most small cities throughout our area during the summer nesting season. Their numbers have seriously declined over the last several decades. Nowadays I look forward to seeing them at dusk as they migrate southward during the late days of August and the first days of September.

One of the greatest spectacles of migration is the movement of broad-winged hawks from their summer nesting homes in the forests of the northeast to their winter haunts in South America. The broad-wings leave en masse at the end of August through to the end of September, after which very few will be seen until next spring. To conserve energy on their long flight south, they typically soar upward in thermal updrafts or winds deflecting off mountain ridges. As they glide up on the lifting wind they look to the south and when they observe other hawks spiraling upward they glide off to another updraft. In this manner they travel several hundred miles each day with hardly any flapping of their wings thus conserving energy. These groups of hawks form a boiling mass of birds that is given the name “kettle.” The largest kettle I have ever observed was about three hundred hawks. Some kettles have been seen with thousands of hawks. The prime time to see broad-winged hawk kettles is the middle of September. Two organization you can check out to learn more about hawks in migration are the Hawk Migration Association of North America (HMANA) at www.hmana.org and NorthEast Hawk Watch at www.battaly.com/nehm/. Look to the right and you will find links to both organizations.

There are two other amazing migrants that we have the chance to observe in our fall skies: the monarch butterfly and the ruby-throated hummingbird. The ruby-throat travels to Central and South America. These small birds waste very little time as they move south. All you see is a glimpse of them as they buzz through just above the tree tops. It is amazing that this small bird can make long distance journeys, sometimes traveling hundreds of miles over oceans with no place to stop for rest or food. I came across a very interesting article online by Bill Hilton, Jr., an ornithologist specializing in hummingbird studies. He describes the work ornithologists have done, including his own, to discover the secrets of hummingbird migration. You can find this article online at http://www.hiltonpond.org/articlehummermigrationmain.html or click on link to the right.

The other well-known migrant is the monarch butterfly. Monarch migration starts at the end of August and lasts until early October. The butterflies that pass us on their way south are ones that hatched and grew up here in the northern latitudes. They never see their parents (not unusual for insects). These insects begin life as an egg on a milkweed leaf. They hatch and grow, undergoing metamorphosis, then travel by themselves on a southward journey to Mexico. All the monarchs in eastern North America travel to the same forests in the Sierra Madre Mountains of south western Mexico. How they know how and where to go on this long journey, no one knows.

To make the story even more interesting, the monarchs we see leaving the Northeast will never return here. Rather, it is their great-great-great grandchildren that will return. Butterflies that grew up here will make their way to Mexico and live there for the winter. In early March they will start the trip northward, but they will never make it back. They will have reached the end of their life, torn and tattered from the long migration and their daily efforts at survival: searching for food and shelter, avoiding predators and surviving dangers like the ravages of wind and rain. But before they die, the females will lay eggs. These eggs will hatch and grow into butterflies that will continue their journey north. But even this next generation will not make it all the way. It will take another two generations of monarchs to make it back here to the Northeast. It will be mid-summer before we see these beautiful butterflies once again.

This marvel of migration is enjoyed and studied by many people. Generally speaking, most of the interest centers on the hawks, though many hawk watchers will record the numbers of monarch butterflies they see flying by. Throughout North America there are hawk migration sites where people gather to watch and count hawks as they soar past. The most famous site is Hawk Mountain along the Kittatinny Ridge in Pennsylvania. There is a hawk watch site outside Albany, NY along the Helderberg Escarpment at Thatcher State Park, and I just learned of a hawk watch on Mount Peter in southern Orange County, NY. This site is purported to be the third oldest hawk watch site in the east and is staffed by volunteer observers. I spent time this past September observing hawks, monarchs and hummingbirds at each of these sites. Here is what I saw.

My observations at Thatcher Park, September 12-14, 2011

Broad-winged Hawk - Sept 12 - 144, Sept 13 - 57, Sept 14 - 28, Total for the three days - 229

Monarch butterfly - Sept 12 - 28, Sept 13 - 46, Sept 14 - 30, Total for the three days - 104

Ruby-throated Hummingbird - Sept 12 - 4, Sept 13 - 0, Sept 14 - 1, Total for the three days - 5

Other Raptors

Bald Eagle - Sept 12 - 4, Sept 13 - 1, Sept 14 - 0, Total for the three days - 5

Golden Eagle - Sept 12 - 1, Sept 13 - 0, Sept 14 - 0, Total for the three days - 1

Sharp-shinned Hawk - Sept 12 - 3, Sept 13 - 0, Sept 14 - 2, Total for the three days - 5

Coopers Hawk - Sept 12 - 2, Sept 13 - 1, Sept 14 - 0, Total for the three days - 3

American Kestrel - Sept 12 - 2, Sept 13 - 1, Sept 14 - 1, Total for the three days - 4

Merlin - Sept 12 - 1, Sept 13 - 0, Sept 14 - 0, Total for the three days - 1

Osprey - Sept 12 - 2, Sept 13 - 2, Sept 14 - 0, Total for the three days - 4

Northern Harrier - Sept 12 - 1, Sept 13 - 1, Sept 14 - 0, Total for the three days - 2

Unidentified Accipiter - Sept 12 - 2, Sept 13 - 3, Sept 14 - 1, Total for the three days - 6

Unidentified Buteo - Sept 12 - 0, Sept 13 - 0, Sept 14 - 1, Total for the three days - 1

Unidentified Falcon - Sept 12 - 0, Sept 13 - 1, Sept 14 - 0, Total for the three days - 1

Unidentified Raptor - Sept 12 - 1, Sept 13 - 2, Sept 14 - 0, Total for the three days - 3

My observations at Mt. Peter, Orange County, NY, September 16, 2011

Broad-winged Hawk 661

Monarch butterfly 361

Ruby-throated Hummingbird 0

Other Raptors

Bald Eagle 11

Golden Eagle 0

Sharp-shinned Hawk 35

Coopers Hawk 5

American Kestrel 14

Merlin 0

Osprey 11

Northern Harrier 1

Unidentified Accipiter 5

Unidentified Buteo 2

Unidentified Falcon 2

Unidentified Raptor 1

The most amazing observation at Mt. Peter’s was the movement of monarch Butterflies. I was at the site from 9:00 in the morning until 5:30 in the evening. During the day, from 9 until 4 we had seen 116 with the majority of those in the afternoon hours. Then from 4 until 5:30 245 monarchs flew by. I have never before seen so many monarchs in such a short period of time. It was like a river of butterflies flowing past. I wonder what conditions created such an amazing spectacle.

While at Hawk Mountain on September 17th I observed several thousand broad-winged hawks in migration. Hawk Mountain posts their observations online at www.hawkmountain.org or clink on link to the right.

Monarch Butterflies observed at Sapphire Elementary School, Monroe, NY, September 19-23, 2011

Monday, Sept 19

10:00-11:00 with Mr. Costa’s class – 3

12:00-1:00 with Mrs. Buonamano’s class – 4

1:00-2:00 with Mrs. Rende’s class – 2

Tuesday, Sept 20

Rainy weather no monarchs observed

Wednesday, Sept 21

10:00-11:00 with Mrs. Zuzek’s class – 5

1:00-2:00 with Mrs. Cassese’s class – 2

Thursday, Sept 22

9:00-10:00 with Mrs. Teel’s class – 1

11:00-12:00 with Mrs. Janeczko’s class – 12

12:00-12:30 during my lunch – 1

12:30-1:30 with Mrs. Cahill’s class – 2

1:30-2:30 with Mrs. McNamara’s class – 3

Friday, Sept 23

Rainy weather no monarchs observed

Monarch Butterflies observed at Smith Clove Elementary School, Central Valley, NY, October 11-14, 2011

Tuesday, Oct 11

9:00-10:00 with Mrs. Rojas’s class – 5

10:00-11:00 with Mrs. Quintana’s class – 7

11:00-12:00 with Mrs. Dell-Webster’s class – 7

12:00-1:00 during lunch – 1

1:00-2:00 with Mrs. Apostolico’s class – 3

Wednesday and Thursday, the 12^th and 13^th were rainy days with no observations made

Friday, Oct 14

8:00-9:00 upon arrival as school – 1

10:00-11:00 with Mrs. O’Dowd’s class – 1

I encourage any class that has the chance to observe monarch Butterflies to record their numbers and e-mail them to me. You can take time to observe monarchs during recess or give students a reward for their hard work by going outside to specifically look for monarchs. Record the time at which the observations were made, the weather conditions and wind direction. Encourage students to be careful in their observations, you don’t want to count the same butterfly twice. Watch carefully to see that the monarch has moved on. If you see another monarch 5 or 10 minutes later you can be assured that it is a different butterfly. Once a butterfly has moved on it is not likely to circle back, after all they are on their way to Mexico. I will keep a track of these observations post them periodically and gladly answer any questions you might have about migration and these amazing migrants.

Painted Turtle Laying Eggs

2011-06-22T19:09:00.000-07:00

While in Monroe, NY working with the Sapphire Elementary School I observed this Painted Turtle (Chrysemys picta) laying eggs. It was already well into the act when I found it on the lawn next to a Dunkin Doughnuts parking lot. I observed it digging her nest for about 15 to 20 minutes before she started laying eggs. She laid 7 eggs in about 10 minutes. I watched her burying the eggs for about 20 minutes before I had to leave.

A great reference for Painted Turtles is Thomas Tyning's book, A Guide to Amphibians and Reptiles, in the Stokes Nature Guides series.

King Elementary Owl Pellet Study

2011-06-11T04:06:00.000-07:00

I had a wonderful time exploring owl ecology and their prey preference with all of you 3^rd grade ornithologists. Here is a review of what we found.

Mrs. Davis’s class dissected 9 pellets and found 22 mice, 1 shrew, 1 mole and 1 bird.

Mrs. Sirico’s class dissected 9 pellets and found 30 mice, 1 shrew, 0 moles and 0 birds.

Mrs. Kipp’s class dissected 8 pellets and found 25 mice, 0 shrews, 0 moles and 1 bird.

The overall results were 77 mice, 2 shrews, 1 mole and 2 birds. This would seem to contradict my hypothesis of shrews being a second favorite food over moles and birds (I always present the favored prey for owls as a hypothesis answering the question of what owl like to eat). Our results say that birds and shrews are equally favored. Remember though, we have a very small sample of 26 pellets. That number of pellets could have been produced by three or four owls in 3 or 4 nights. Do you think it is a good idea to base our decision on this small of a sample?

Look over other owl pellet dissection results here in my blog. Combining the results from other school would serve to increase our sample size and give us better data that we can use to evaluate my hypothesis that mice are the number 1 favored food, with shrews being the second most favored and moles and birds tied for third favored.

Field Ornithology at King Elementary

2011-06-11T03:54:00.000-07:00

Well, the school year is winding down and I am trying to catch up with blogging about my school visits. I did my annual bird survey at King Elementary in Warwick on June 1. Here is what we found.

The weather was hot, not the best birding conditions, but we still found 29 species of birds. Six species were observed by all three classes. Mrs. Flynn’s class was in the field from about 9:20 to 10:00. The temperature was in the mid 80’s with slight haze in the sky and no wind. Mrs. Shoock’s class started looking for birds at about 1:00 and ended at about 1:45. The temperature was in the low 90’s with a strong breeze from the West and a hazy sky. Mrs. Boccia’s class looked for bird from about 2:20 to 3:00 The temperature was in the mid 90’s, very humid, sky with complete high altitude haze and slight breeze from the West.

Here is the total list of birds seen. I have put a letters after each species to indicate which classes observed or heard that bird.

Black Vulture (B, F, S)

Turkey Vulture (B, F, S)

Sharp-shinned Hawk (S)

Coopers Hawk (B)

Red-tailed Hawk (B)

Chimney Swift (B)

Downy Woodpecker (F)

Eastern Phoebe (F)

Eastern Kingbird (B)

Blue Jay (B, S)

American Crow (F, S)

Tree Swallow (S)

House Wren (B, S)

Eastern Bluebird (B, F, S)

Wood Thrush (F)

American Robin (B, F)

Gray Catbird (B, F, S)

European Starling (F)

Cedar Waxwing (B, F)

Yellow Warbler (B, S)

Common Yellowthroat (B)

Chipping Sparrow (B, F, S)

Song Sparrow (S)

Rose-breasted Grosbeak (F)

Red-winged Blackbird (B, F, S)

Brown-headed Cowbird (B)

Baltimore Oriole (F, S)

Purple Finch (F, S)

American Goldfinch (S)

It was exciting to see so many birds even though we were looking for birds during the hottest time of mid-day. The best time to look for birds would be early morning and I am sure if we were to survey birds around the school at that time we might get an additional 5 to 10 more species.

I think every school should establish a yearly list of birds observed or heard at their school. Additional bird studies could be conducted at school, including setting up bird feeders and conducting a feeder watch, and building, setting up and monitoring nest boxes. When students do animal reports they could be encouraged to do reports on birds that live around the school, incorporating their own observations of those birds in their reports.

2011-06-07T20:13:00.001-07:00

Today I visited three 4^th grade classes at Lynnwood Elementary School in Schenectady (Guilderland Central School District). We were ornithologists studying owls. As part of our class we dissected owl pellets to learn about what their preferred prey is. Here is what we found.

Mrs. Janssen’s class dissected 10 pellets which contained the bones of 30 mice, 7 shrews, 1 mole and 2 birds.

Mrs. Follonsbee’s with several students from Mr. Miller’s class dissected 13 pellets which contained the bones of 38 mice, 1 shrew, 0 moles and 0 birds.

Mrs. Romano’s class with several students from Mr. Miller’s class dissected 14 pellets which contained the bones of 43 mice, 1 shrew, 0 moles and 0 birds.

A total of 37 pellets were dissected revealing the remains of 111 mice, 9 shrews, 1 mole and 2 birds. As a way of illustrating what a hypothesis is I told them that I had researched what Barn Owls eat and had hypothesized that their most favored food was rodents, such as mice. Shrews were a second favored prey and moles and birds were tied for third. Our findings would seem to support this hypothesis.

In our wrap up discussion I mentioned that there seemed to be a larger than usual number of prey per owl pellet. I speculated that this might be due to the large number of smaller mice found in the pellets. We could see this size difference when comparing skulls, jaw and hip bones. We wondered whether this might reflect the fact that at this time of year there might be many more rodent nests which the owls might find by listening to the squeaks of the young, hence the finding of smaller sized bones of young mice. An owl eating 4 or 5 small young mice might get as full as an owl eating 2 or 3 full grown mice. If we compare the average number of prey animals per pellet to the findings of pellets at a different time of the year we might find evidence supporting this.

The average number of animals per pellet with the Lynnwood students was 3.3 animals per pellet.

We can compare this to the findings from four 4^th grade classes at Leptondale Elementary School in Wallkill (see previous post). These were pellets were collected approximately one month earlier. At Leptondale there were 40 pellets dissected. These contained the bones of 122 mice, 3 shrews, 1 mole and 2 birds. This gives an average of 3.2 prey per pellet. That is not much different than the average found at Lynnwood, perhaps we need to look at owl pellets found even earlier in the year.

Let’s look at pellets collected in mid-winter. I visited the Nazareth Intermediate School in Nazareth, PA in January (see previous post in the blog archive). Working with 14 4^th grade classes we dissected 168 pellets and found 335 mice, 45 shrews, 20 moles and 6 birds for an average of 2.42 prey per pellet. If we look at what Lynnwood students found in March of 2010 there were 111 mice, 5 shrew, 1 mole and 0 birds in 41 pellets for an average of 2.9 prey per pellet.

There does indeed seem to be a difference in the number of prey eaten per pellet at different times of the year. It also seems that there might be a difference in the number of shrew and moles taken at different times of the year. Look over other owl pellets studies that I have done with other schools at different times of the year in my blog archives.

Leptondale Elementary School Owl Pellet Dissection

2011-06-07T20:03:00.000-07:00

Ah, spring has run away on me and I am late in getting some of my school visits recorded here on my blog. One of my favorite environmental education activities is owl pellet investigations. It's an incredibly exciting way to learn about owl behavior and there predator-prey relationships.

In May I had my annual visit at the Leptondale Elementary School in Wallkill, NY. The 4th grades do my Owl Ecology session. The culmination of the class is the dissection of owl pellets to learn about what owl eat. Here are the results for all four 4^th grade owl pellet dissections.

Mrs. Psilopoulos’ class dissected 9 pellets and found 28 mice, 2 shrew, 0 moles and 1 bird.

Mr. Zupan’s class dissected 11 pellets and found 35 mice, 0 shrew, 1 mole and 0 birds.

Mrs. Danneman’s class dissected 10 pellets and found 25 mice, 1 shrew, 0 moles and 0 birds.

Mrs. Davis’ and Mrs. Gunderson’s class dissected 10 pellets and found 34 mice, 0 shrews, 0 moles and 1 bird.

The totals for all four classes were 122 mice, 3 shrews, 1 mole and 2 birds found in 40 pellets. That is an average of 3.2 prey per pellet. This average is a little higher than what I often find at other times. What do you think might have caused this higher average?

More food for thought. If an owl produces two pellets a night, how many mice would an owl consume in a year? By eating this many mice do you think the owl helps farmers and orchard growers?

Clearly mice are the most favored prey. With the data we collected it is not clear that shrews are much more favored than moles and birds. More pellets should be dissected to see if there really is a difference. You can order more pellets for yourself (see the link to Pellets,Inc. at left), dissect them and add that data to our findings, or you can look over other reports in my blog from other schools for more data. As a mater of fact, you can look to see what Leptondale students found in past years by looking through the blog archives. My blog is www.schoolyardnaturalist.blogspot.com.

Take some time to wander in the woods and find pellets from owl in your backyard!

Owl Pellet Studies at Altamont and Jefferson Elementary Schools

2011-03-28T19:22:00.000-07:00

On Friday, March 25, I visited the Altamont Elementary School and worked with three fourth grade classes. I worked with Ms. DeGennaro, Mrs. Flanagan and Mrs. Vogel’s classes. Here is what we found when we dissected owl pellets.

Ms. DeGennnaro’s class – in 8 pellets dissected we found 20 mice, 1 shrew, 0 moles and 0 birds

Mrs. Flanagans’ class – in 9 pellets we found 24 mice, 1 shrew, 0 moles and 0 birds

Mrs. Vogel’s class – in 8 pellets we found 24 mice, 0 shrews, 0 moles and 0 birds

This is a very small sample to use to determine if my hypothesis (remember I had answered the question, “What is an owl’s favorite foo?” with the hypothesis that mice were the most favored, shrews second most and moles and birds tied for third) was correct. Clearly, mice are the most favored, but before we can say that shrews are the second most favored we have to think about what these numbers mean.

Yes, there were 2 shrews found in the 25 pellets we dissected along with no moles or birds. That may or may not mean that shrews indeed are the second most favored over moles and birds. Our sample size of owl pellets is very small. Because of this we should not be ready to say that shrews are surely the second most favored food. We would want to dissect more pellets to get more evidence. As a matter of fact I did an owl ecology session with 5^th graders at Jefferson Elementary School in Rotterdam today. Here is what we found.

Mrs. Bondi’s class – in 11 pellets dissected we found 32 mice, 0 shrews, 0 moles and 0 birds

Mrs. Walker’s class – in 11 pellets we found 24 mice, 0 shrews, 0 moles and 0 birds

Mrs. West’s class – in 11 pellets we found 29 mice, 7 shrews, 0 moles and 0 birds

Mrs. Fiske’s class – in 9 pellets we found 23 mice, 1 shrew, 0 moles and 0 birds

Mrs. Zanta’s class – in 11 pellets we found 37 mice, 2 shrews, 0 moles and 0 birds

Looking at just the Jefferson Elementary findings we see out of 53 pellets dissected there were 145 mice, 10 shrews and no birds or moles. This confirms what we found at Altamont, mice are the most favored. Now with a larger sample size we can better determine the preference for shrews. With two shrews found by the Altamont students and 10 shrews found by Jefferson students it does appear that shrews are the second favored food. With no moles or birds found at either schools we are still not sure if they are a third favored food. As a matter of fact with no moles or birds found we might presume that they are not eaten at all.

Just as discussed in each class I visited, the more pellets we can dissect the better of an understanding we will have for owl food preference. If we increase our sample size we would get more data that might shed light on the question of what role do moles and birds play in the owl food preference. We can do that by looking at what was found in owl pellets dissections in other schools, including what was found at Altamont and Jefferson Elementary schools in previous years. To do this check out my blog at www.schoolyardnaturalist.blogspot.com to see what the findings at other schools were and then draw conclusions about my hypothesis.

Of course if any student would like to do further studies on their own and dissect more pellets they can get pellets from Pellets,Inc. at www.pelletsinc.com. Naturally if students have more questions they can e-mail me and I would love to help them with their research.

Field Ornithology at Ostrander Elementary School, Wallkill, NY

2011-03-22T14:27:00.000-07:00

Here are the results of the spring bird surveys that were done with Mrs. McQuiston, Mrs. Wager, Mrs. Missale and Mrs. Stokes’ 3rd grade classes on Thursday and Friday of last week.

Mrs. McQuiston’s class

Thursday, March 17, 2:00 PM

Temperature – low 50’s

Strong breeze from the west

5 % cirrus cloud cover

Red-tailed Hawk – 2

Ring-billed Gull – 2

Mourning Dove – 3

American Crow – 76

American Robin – 4

Northern Cardinal – 3

Red-winged Blackbird – 8

Common Grackle – 3

House Sparrow – 10

111 birds total among 10 species

Mrs. Wager & Mrs. Missale’s class

Friday, March 18 ,11:40 AM

Temperature – high 50’s

Very strong west wind

99% low cumulus cloud cover

Canada Goose – 315

Red-tailed Hawk – 3 (2 adults, 1 juvenile)

Ring-billed Gull – 1

American Crow – 4

American Robin – 4

European Starling – 4

Red-winged Blackbird – 12

Common Grackle – 7

House Sparrow – 7

360 birds total among 9 species

Mrs. Stokes’ class

Friday, March 18 2:05 PM

Temperature – high 60’s

Very strong west wind

20% cumulus cloud cover

Red-tailed Hawk – 4

Mourning Dove – 3

American Crow – 1

American Robin – 7 Cedar Waxwing – 3

Northern Cardinal – 1

Red-winged Blackbird – 12

Common Grackle – 9

House Sparrow – 10

37 birds total among 9 species

A total of 12 different kinds of birds were observed. Six species were seen by all three groups. The Canada Geese were for the most part in three large groups at very high altitude. These birds were definitely in migration heading north. The large numbers of crows seen on Wednesday with Mrs. McQuiston’s class were likely birds heading back to roost from their daytime feeding areas. These birds streamed past in a loose group over a period of a few minutes. We wondered if we might observe a similar movement on the 17^th. We did not. This was likely due to the high winds that day. The strong westerly winds on the 17^th were about 20 to 30 mph and may have affected how, when and where the crows flew that day on their way from their feeding areas.

A classic way to judge winds speed is the Beaufort Wind Scale developed in 1806 by Sir Francis Beaufort, a British admiral. See link to the right to go to the Wikipedia entry for more information on Beaufort and how to use his scale to measure wind speed.

It would be interesting to observe birds around the school as the season progresses. In a few short weeks many more different kinds of birds will be returning from their winter homes to find nesting areas around the school. At the same time large groups of birds like the Canada Geese and the American Crows will most likely not be seen as this grouping or flocking behavior would not be done during the nesting season. An overall year list of birds would give an idea as to the birds that migrate through to more northerly habitats, return to nest during the warm weather or are resident all year round. Such a list if maintained over a number of years could be used to determine such things as global climate change, habitat change or species change in the environment.

Compare bird observation findings at other schools in my blog. Look through the archived entries to see done at the same schools in different years, on different dates and at different times.

Owl Pellet Study at Ostrander Elementary School

2011-03-17T19:59:00.001-07:00

I completed the final owl study class with 2^nd graders at Ostrander Elementary School in Wallkill, NY today. Here are the results of the owl pellet dissections.

Dutka’s class – 8 pellets dissected, prey found – 22 mice, 3 shrew, 0 moles, 1 bird

Lupoli’s class – 8 pellets dissected, prey found – 17 mice, 3 shrew, 1 mole, 1 bird

Nisa’s class – 5 pellets dissected, prey found – 7 mice, 3 shrew, 2 moles, 0 birds

Busse’s class – 8 pellets dissected prey found – 15 mice, 2 shrew, 0 moles, 0 birds

I had presented the following hypothesis to the students in response to the question what is the favorite food of Barn Owls. Mice and other rodents are the most favored food. Shrews, small insectivore mammals are the second favored food. Moles, another small insect and worm eating mammal, and birds, small birds mostly found in barn areas are tied for the third most favored food. What does the data tell us about the hypothesis?

In the 29 pellets dissected there were 77 prey animals found. Of these 77 animals 61 were mice. Mice were definitely the most favored food.

My hypothesis stated that shrews were the second favorite. Is that correct? Of the remaining 16 animals eaten by Barn Owls that produced the pellets we dissected 11 were shrews. What do you think?

Now look at the number of moles and the number of birds eaten, 3 and 2. Though it is not an exact tie, you can’t get any closer to a tie than that. It does seem that moles and birds are tied as the third favorite food.

Finally consider this. There are many other potential prey for the owls, small amphibians, large insects, other small mammals, but it seems from what we found that owls seem to not prey on them. You can research this to find out if Barn Owls might eat other animals. One research source is my blog, www.schoolyardnaturalist.blogspot.com. Check it and see what other data has been collected with owl pellet studies at other schools, including what was found at Ostrander in previous years.

A January Owl Ecology Class

2011-03-03T13:56:00.000-08:00

I am late with this post. My apologies to the young ornithologists at the Nazareth Intermediate School in Nazareth, PA. In January I had my annual visit to this school where I did a lesson on Owl Ecology. We talked about the 4 common owls of the Nazareth, PA area, the Eastern Screech-owl (Otus asio), the Great Horned Owl (Bubo virginianus), the Barred Owl (Strix varia) and the Barn Owl (Tyto alba). Our discussion covered the identification, behavior, and habitat needs of these owls. We also talked about how students might do field studies of the owls with the help of their parents or other responsible adults.

We then dissected owl pellets to see what food preferences the Barn Owl has. The pellets we dissected were from western Barn Owls purchased from Pellets,Inc. (see link below to the right). Here is the data we collected.

Thomas/Miller classes 24 pellets, 54 mice, 6 shrews, 2 moles, 1 bird

Kimble/Velekei classes 26 pellets, 52 mice, 4 shrews, 4 moles, 0 birds

Roth/Giemza classes 24 pellets, 57 mice, 6 shrews, 1 moles, 1 bird

Emrick/DeBoer classes 24 pellets, 37 mice, 8 shrews, 5 moles, 1 bird, 1 insect

Genua class 12 pellets, 28 mice, 6 shrews, 3 moles, 1 bird

Reed class 10 pellets, 12 mice, 5 shrews, 1 moles, 0 birds

Rohn/Quinones classes 23 pellets, 45 mice, 4 shrews, 1 mole, 0 birds

Reynolds/McCarron classes 25 pellets, 50 mice, 6 shrews, 3 moles, 2 birds

Analysis

One hundred sixty-eight pellets were dissected by fourteen classes of 4^th graders. A total of 335 mice, 45 shrews, 20 moles and 6 birds were found. In addition to these prey, one pellet included the remains of an insect. These remains appeared to be leg segments from a something like a mole cricket (Gryllotalpidae family). Taken in whole this data indicates that on average Barn Owls eat 2.42 animals per meal (the pellet is a result of a meal – in one night the owls might produce 3 or 4 pellets as they feed, then stop to rest and digest and then go back to feeding throughout the night). This average matches findings with other owl pellet dissections conducted with other schools (see archives for other owl pellet dissection results).

In our discussion before the dissection we had hypothesized that mice would be the favorite food, with shrews second favorite and moles and birds tied for third. It is clear that mice indeed are the most common prey and that shrews are second. It seems though that moles are more often eaten than birds by a factor of three. Look through other owl pellet dissections in the archives of this blog and see if this bears out with the findings in those sessions.

I wonder if the owl ate the insect as a primary prey or if it might have ingested the insect when it ate a mole that had eaten the cricket. Moles feed on underground insects and other invertebrates. It is possible the mole had just eaten the cricket and then was eaten by the owl. Unfortunately I did not take notes as to what else was found in the pellet with the insect parts. If mole remains were found along with the cricket remains that would support the idea that the owl ate a mole that had eaten the cricket. If I ever find insects parts in owl pellets in the future I know that I will be sure to make note of what other prey were found in the same pellet.

The owl food chain affects farmers. Since mice, and these mice are for the most part are field mice (Microtus spp), are the favored prey the owls, eating them affects farm production by reducing the amount of plant crops eaten by the mice. I have a little math exercise I call “Mouse Mathematics” that I will post in the near future that illustrates what this cost savings for a farmer might be. Look for it being posted soon.

Native Americans and the White-tailed Deer

2011-02-14T20:02:00.001-08:00

I've been doing my Native Americans and the White-tailed Deer program a lot recently. In this program I show students how the Eastern Woodland Indians used the white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) in one way or another for food, clothing, tools, toys, musical instruments, ornaments and jewelry. I'm grateful to Larry Montalto and Jeff Gottlieb for their help with research and materials. An outstanding resource that Larry shared with me is the book "Primitive Technology: A Book of Earth Skills" edited by David Wescott.

Larry tells me that he has found over 60 things made from or with deer parts. See a link I found to a cool poster that depicts some of these items and where they come from in the deer.

At the Jefferson Elementary School in Rotterdam Amanda in Mrs. Hemphill’s class came up with some questions that she sent me. Here are my answer that I shared with her and her classmates.

How many babies do they have? They usually have two babies. Sometimes they have only one and every now and then they might have triplets.

How long do they live? Deer can live to about 10-12 years of age but that is very unusual for wild deer. Females live longer than males. It would not be unusual for a female to reach 7 or 8 years old. Males usually only get to be only 3 to 5 years old. Many male deer get hit by cars as they run around chasing after female deer in the fall. They also spend so much time chasing females that they don’t eat enough to build up fat for the winter. If it is a very snowy winter they might not survive.

What does they foot print look like? I down loaded this from the internet.

How many white-tailed deer are there? The number of white-tailed deer in Pennsylvania is estimated at about 1,500,000.

What are their enemies? Man is the biggest predator of the deer which includes deer that are hunted and deer that are killed by cars and trucks. Coyotes and bobcats will also prey on deer, especially young deer and deer in winter when there is deep snow.

Are some of them friendly? Deer are wild animals and even if they seem friendly can be dangerous, especially during the fall mating season.

You can learn more about deer online or by getting books at the library. Deer are one of the most studied wild mammals so there is a lot of information about them available.

More Bird Study Activity

2010-12-20T17:14:00.000-08:00

I had a flurry of bird study activity recently including an Owl Ecology Program and a Ecology/Winter Bird Count Program at Marlboro Intermediate School and three Christmas Bird Counts.

A group of interested 3rd grade students had the chance to do an Owl Ecology session. There was a group of 24 students. We took apart 24 pellets. In the pellets we found 26 mice, 4 shrews, no moles and 1 bird. Compare these numbers with other owl investigations I have done. Look in the archived blogs for them.

The 5th grade students and I did an ecology walk around the school building. We focused on some of the diverse plants in the schoolyard. Talked about how they grow, especially looking at some of the trees. We looked for terminal leaf scarring on twigs to see how much the twigs grew each year over the last few years. We looked for signs of animal life including a several squirrel nests and a robin’s nest. Each student had a pair of binoculars to use to observe wildlife, particularly birds.

I explained that at this time of year all across the country ornithologists and bird watchers are conducting Christmas Bird Counts (CBC). These counts have been held for more than 100 years. The numbers of birds observed and recorded on these counts are used by scientists to look at trends in bird populations over time. A count is held in a specified area 15 miles in diameter. The count area is divided into sector where teams of observers identify and count as many birds as they can on the count day.

We identified and counted birds as we walked around the schoolyard to give students an idea of how ornithologists would do a bird count. Here are our results.

Count starting time 1:15 PM
Count ending time 2 PM
Clear skies, temperature in the low 40’s, gentle breeze from the west
Birds Observed
Red-tailed Hawk – 1
Ring-billed Gull – 7
Blue Jay – 3
American Crow – 8
Northern Mockingbird – 1
Northern Cardinal – 3

I have done three CBC’s in the past week. The first was the Greene County CBC with Alan Mapes and Kate Storms. We had 46 species including 5 Bald Eagles, several thousand Snow Goose, a really great look at a Barred Owl, one Winter Wren and a couple of Yellow-rumped Warblers. The most unusual find was a Baltimore Oriole. Oriole are neotropical migrants and spend their winter in the rainforests of South America. Unlike the Marlboro students we did not find any Northern Mockingbirds.

The second count I did was the Montezuma CBC. I have participated in this count for the last three years. I was happy to join in the count efforts since back in the late ‘70’s I worked on releasing Bald Eagles at the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge and I enjoy the opportunity to look for birds there again. Link to the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge website below to the right to find out more about this wonderful wild area. I teamed up with Jim Eckler and Dave Robertson and we found 34 species, the coolest (in my opinion) being 8 Trumpeter Swans. We also got 1 Bald Eagle, 2 Sharp-shinned Hawks and a Carolina Wren, the only one seen in the count circle.

The third count was the Albany County Christmas Bird Count which I worked with Alan Mapes and Jocelyn Cole. We found 38 species with the most interesting being 2 Northern Shrikes, an adult and a juvenile. Other interesting species were two Ruffed Grouse (an easily missed species), an Eastern Screech-owl, a Barred Owl, two Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers, and eighteen Common Redpoll. The Screech-owl flew in to my screech-owl whistling. If I hadn’t been looking in the right spot when it flew in we’d most likely have missed it as it had a completely silent flight. We observed it for a few minutes then it flew off without a sound.

For more information on Christmas Bird Counts find the link to the right to visit the National Audubon Christmas Bird Count site.

A bonus of these bird count explorations is the chance to see a wide variety of habitats and the wildlife found there, more than just birds. On all three CBC's we observed River Otter tracks. On the Albany County CBC we actually had the chance to observe an Otter along with eight other mammals, an unidentified shrew species, red squirrel, gray squirrel, cottontail rabbit, meadow vole, an unidentified peromiscus species (deer or white-footed mouse), white-tailed deer and muskrat.

Circleville Owl Pellet Dissection

2010-11-14T18:24:00.000-08:00

On November 12th I visited the 3rd grade classes at Circleville Elementary School in the Pine Bush CSD and did an owl ecology program. After discussion on how ornithologists might do a survey of the common owls of the Circleville area we dissected owl pellets. Here are the results.

Feuerstack’s class 14 pellets – 26 mice, 7 shrews, 0 moles, 0 birds
Eller’s class 12 pellets – 25 mice, 2 shrews, 0 moles, 4 birds
DelMoro’s class 11 pellets – 23 mice, 4 shrews, 1 mole, 1 bird
Lindsay’s class 11 pellets – 25 mice, 1 shrew, 0 moles, 1 bird

A total of 48 pellets were dissected. Most of the pellets were the large size pellets available from Pellets, Inc. (see link below on the right). There were 4 small pellets used in Mrs. Feuerstack’s class. These small size pellets might affect the average number of prey found per pellet.

A total of 99 mice, 14 shrews, 1 mole and 6 birds were found in the pellets. That averages two and a half prey animals per pellet. If an owl produces four pellets per night how many prey animals might be eaten? How many of these would most likely be mice?

It’s interesting to note the number of birds eaten. This seems to be an unusually high number as compared to other dissection classes (look through the blog archives to see other dissection results). Perhaps the owls that produced these pellets have a particular fondness for birds. There could be several reasons for this. One might be that there was an abundance of small birds in the area that the owls hunted making it easier or more likely that they would capture birds for food. Another could be that these owls may have had a preference for birds and hunted them more successfully than the typical owl. Just like people, sometimes an animal develops a taste for certain prey. If that is the case that predator might pursue their favorite prey more so than other predators of their kind. An example of this is a kestrel I once observed. This kestrel had a fondness for snakes. It would often be seen flying to its nest box with a snake in its talons to feed its young. “Feathers in the Wind” by James J. Brett, published by the Hawk Mountain Sanctuary Association (see link below), lists insect and mice as the most favored food for Kestrels, followed by small birds and amphibians. Snakes as a food source are not even mentioned.

Ornithology at Bardonia Elementary School

2010-11-08T17:57:00.000-08:00

Back at the end of October I visited Bardonia Elementary School in Rockland County and took 5th graders outside the school to do an autumn bird walk survey. Each student had a pair of binoculars to use and received instructions on how to use them properly, how to observe birds with the binoculars and how to identify birds by both sight and sound. Students also learned about taking field notes.

Twenty-six species of birds were identified. Six species were seen by all three classes: Blue Jay, Black-capped Chickadee, White-breasted Nuthatch, Carolina Wren, Common Grackle and House Sparrow. Many of the birds were observed just outside the 5th grade wing where a bird feeder is set up. These included House Sparrow, Black-capped Chickadee, Mourning Dove, White-throated Sparrow, Common Grackle, Blue Jay, Northern Cardinal and Tufted Titmouse. The Carolina Wren was heard by all the classes off in the woods just beyond the bird feeder area. A small stream flows through this area. This forest tangle is an ideal habitat for this wren.

The Red-bellied Woodpeckers were heard and seen in the woods to the west of the school. Both the Red-bellied Woodpecker and the Carolina Wren are species that have in the last few decades been moving northward. Some scientists think that this is due to global climate change. Both of these species are more common in the southern parts of the United States where it is warmer.

Another interesting observation was that the last class of the day was the one that observed all but one of the hawks and vultures. Hawks and vultures often use thermal updrafts to soar and glide in. The updrafts make flying easier. Updrafts build as the day wears on and the sun heats up the earth. Earlier in the day there would be less rising hot air. This is may, in part, be the reason the first two classes did not observe the hawks and vultures.

This late in the fall many of the summer residents have left, migrating for areas to the south. They have left not so much because they don’t like the cold weather, but because the cold weather makes it harder to find food. These birds eat mostly insects. The cold weather affects the numbers of insects available for the birds to find for food. Some of these birds travel as far as South America for the winter. They will be back by mid-May of next year when there will be more insects for food.

Here are the results of our survey.

Mrs. O’Hara class – 8:40 to 9:40 AM, clear skies, very few clouds, little to no wind, temperature in the upper 50’s, 15 species identified

Mourning Dove – 3
Downy Woodpecker – 1
Red-bellied Woodpecker – 2
Blue Jay – 5
Black-capped Chickadee – 3
Tufted Titmouse – 1
White-breasted Nuthatch – 1
Carolina Wren – 1
American Robin – 18
European Starling – 5
Cedar Waxwing – 3
White-throated Sparrow – 3
Red-wing Blackbird – 25
Common Grackle – 2
House Sparrow – 10

Mr. Pisano’s class – 9:50 to 10:50 AM, clear skies, very few clouds, little to no wind, temperature in the upper 50’s to lower 60’s, 14 species identified

American Kestrel – 1
Blue Jay – 9
American Crow – 13
Black-capped Chickadee – 2
Tufted Titmouse – 2
White-breasted Nuthatch – 1
Carolina Wren – 1
Northern Mockingbird – 1
Yellow-rumped Warbler – 1
White-throated Sparrow – 2
Northern Cardinal – 1
Common Grackle – 13
American Goldfinch – 11
House Sparrow – 11

Mrs. Del Valle – 11:00 to Noon, clear skies, very few clouds, little to no wind, temperature in the upper mid 60’s, 15 species identified

Black Vulture – 5
Turkey Vulture – 5
Sharp-shinned Hawk – 1
Coopers Hawk – 1
Red-tailed Hawk – 1
Mourning Dove – 2
Blue Jay – 3
American Crow – 3
Black-capped Chickadee – 2
White-breasted Nuthatch – 1
Carolina Wren – 1
Northern Cardinal – 1
Common Grackle – 9
Red-wing Blackbird – 15
House Sparrow – 15

Here is a composite list of all species seen between all three classes:

Black Vulture
Turkey Vulture
Sharp-shinned Hawk
Coopers Hawk
Red-tailed Hawk
American Kestrel
Mourning Dove
Downy Woodpecker
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Blue Jay
American Crow
Black-capped Chickadee
Tufted Titmouse
White-breasted Nuthatch
Carolina Wren
American Robin
Northern Mockingbird
European Starling
Cedar Waxwing
Yellow-rumped Warbler
White-throated Sparrow
Northern Cardinal
Red-wing Blackbird
Common Grackle
American Goldfinch
House Sparrow

Look through my blog to find other schools where I have taken students out into the field for ornithological observations. You can compare the findings of these different outings. The differences might be due to differing habitats, different locations, different times of year and different weather conditions. What differences do you find and why?

another owl pellet investigation

2010-10-06T18:56:00.000-07:00

Another school year has arrived and I am busy with my Ecologist-In-Residence programs. I still have some visits to write about from last year. I’ll try to catch up, but I do have some results from my most recent visit to Bell Top Elementary School in East Greenbush, NY.

Mrs. O’Connell chose my Owl Ecology program for her 3rd grade class. She has selected a theme on owls for her class. The students will be doing research about owls from around the world and she felt that starting the year off with a session on owl ecology would be good. She was also very excited to be able to have the students take apart owl pellets.

We dissected 11 pellets and found the skeletal remains of 21 voles, 1 shrew, no moles and no birds. The average of 2 animals per pellet is a little low from my experience. I did note that the pellets I got for this class were smaller than the usual pellets I have gotten in the past. I think that is reflected in the number of prey animals per pellet.

Look through the archived entries for other owl pellet explorations and see how these numbers compare to what other classes have found in the past.

I am going to try to catch up with some blogs about programs I did last spring and experiences from this summer. This includes a pond ecology session I did last spring including some video of a few pond creatures, an interesting ground bee that I found while doing sheep shearing for kindergarteners and 1sr graders and a cannibal grasshopper we found this summer while traveling out west.

Ornithology at King Elementary, Warwick

2010-06-12T13:43:00.000-07:00

On Friday, June 10th, I lead three groups of 5th grade ornithologists around the school yard environment of King Elementary School in Warwick. The school grounds offer a nice variety of habitats including lawn, mixed hardwood forest, old field and marshland. This mix of habitat meets the needs of a variety of birds and other wildlife (in addition to the birds that we were looking for we saw gray squirrels, chipmunks, cotton-tail rabbits and a red fox).

Here are the findings for each group.

Mrs. DiGi’s class – Our walk started at about 9:15 AM. There was a 75% cloud cover with a slight breeze from the southwest. The temperature was in the low 60’s.

We identified:

Great Blue Heron
Mallard
Black Vulture
Turkey Vulture
Mourning Dove
Blue Jay
American Crow
Barn Swallow
Eastern Bluebird
American Robin
Gray Catbird
Cedar Waxwing
European Starling
Yellow Warbler
Chipping Sparrow
Song Sparrow
Red-winged Blackbird
Common Grackle
House Sparrow
American Gold Finch

Mrs. Kunath’s class – We started at about 10:15 AM. Cloud cover had increased to about 95%. The breeze continued to be slight from the southwest. We estimated the temperature to be in the mid-60’s.

We saw the following:

Mallard
Turkey Vulture
Mourning Dove
Chimney Swift
Northern Flicker
Great Crested Flycatcher
American Crow
Barn Swallow
Tufted Titmouse
Eastern Bluebird
American Robin
Gray Catbird
Cedar Waxwing
Yellow Warbler
Rose-breasted Grosbeak
Chipping Sparrow
Song Sparrow
Baltimore Oriole
Red-winged Blackbird
Common Grackle
Brown-headed Cowbird
House Sparrow
American Gold Finch

Mrs. Boccia’s class – Was in the field by about 2:30 PM and had the shortest time afield since it was the last group before school dismissal. The weather had become more threatening with cloud cover about 70% including thunderclouds. The breeze remained slight but shifted to the west. The temperature increased to about the low 70’s. At one point some rain began to fall but did not last much more than a few minutes.

We spotted the following birds:

Black Vulture
Turkey Vulture
Blue Jay
American Crow
Eastern Bluebird
American Robin
Gray Catbird
European Starling
Yellow Warbler
Chestnut-sided Warbler
Chipping Sparrow
Song Sparrow
Baltimore Oriole
Common Grackle
House Sparrow
American Gold Finch

We spotted a total of 28 species for the day. The third group out had the least number of birds. This might have been the result of several factors. One is that mid-day to early afternoon is not the best time to see the most numbers of birds. When the day gets hot many birds look for a place to rest out of the heat of the day. The best time to find most birds is early morning just after sunrise. The third group also did not have time to explore all the habitats around the school.

One of the first birds that were spotted for the day was a great blue heron. I explained to the students that it might be the only one we’d see. Actually we saw another four or five. All of them were observed by the early group. These herons might have been heading out from their nesting or roosting areas where they had spent the night. They would have been heading out to find hunting areas for the day.

Our view of the fox with Mrs. Boccia’s class was quite exciting. The fox seemed to have some issues with its fur. It might have mange, but otherwise seemed to be OK. We watched it hunt along the edge of the field where it seemed to catch some kind of small animal before heading off into the old field habitat.

We named one corner of the school yard chipping sparrow corner since there were several chipping sparrows hunting for food and feeding young. When ever the adults would fly up from the ground after capturing some food we’d spot where the young were from the squawking they would make as they begged to be fed. We were able to observe the adults feeding the young.

At one point we had a great view of a male red-winged blackbird displaying his red shoulder patches when a second male landed on the lawn where the first blackbird was feeding.

It would be a great ornithology project to make a checklist of the birds of King Elementary School.

Composite List for Brinton Brook

2010-06-11T19:36:00.000-07:00

Here is a composite list for all bird species identified during the birding field trips done with Pierre Van Cortlandt 5th Grade classes. These field trips spanned the period of early May to early June, with trips on May 10, May 11 and June 1.

A total of 49 species were identified. Here is the list:

Mallard
Black Vulture
Turkey Vulture
Red-tailed Hawk
Mourning Dove
Belted Kingfisher
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Downy Woodpecker
Hairy Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
Pileated Woodpecker
Great Crested Flycatcher
Eastern Phoebe
Red-eyed Vireo
Blue Jay
American Crow
Northern Rough-winged Swallow
Barn Swallow
Black-capped Chickadee
Tufted Titmouse
White-breasted Nuthatch
Carolina Wren
Veery
Wood Thrush
American Robin
Cedar Waxwing
Gray Catbird
Northern Parula
Yellow Warbler
Magnolia Warbler
Black-throated Green Warbler
Blackburnian Warbler
Black-and-White Warbler
American Redstart
Ovenbird
Scarlet Tanager
Eastern Towhee
Chipping Sparrow
Song Sparrow
Northern Cardinal
Rose-breasted Grosbeak
Red-winged Blackbird
Common Grackle
Brown-headed Cowbird
Baltimore Oriole
Indigo Bunting
Purple Finch
Gold Finch
Chipping Sparrow

Ornithology Field Trip to Brinton Brook Sanctuary

2010-06-11T19:12:00.000-07:00

I’m trying to catch up blogging about some of my most recent school programs. On June 1st I did the final ornithology field trip for Pierre Van Cortlandt Middle School 5th Graders. Two classes participated in the field trips, Mrs. Ernau’s class in the morning and Mrs. Herbert’s class in the afternoon. Here are our findings.

Mrs. Ernau’s class

We started at about 9:30 AM. The weather was good with high altitude haze, a slight breeze from the southwest and temperature in the low 70’s. The nineteen species identified were:

Red-tailed Hawk
Belted Kingfisher
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
Blue Jay
American Crow
Northern Rough-winged Swallow
Wood Thrush
Gray Catbird
Black-and-White Warbler
Eastern Towhee
Song Sparrow
Northern Cardinal
Rose-breasted Grosbeak
Indigo Bunting
Purple Finch
Red-winged Blackbird
Common Grackle
Baltimore Oriole

Mrs. Herbert’s class

Our exploration started at about 12:15 PM. The weather had become partly sunny and remained breezy with temperatures still in the low 70’s. At one point there was a strong rain shower that lasted about 5 or 10 minutes. We waited out the rain underneath a tree at the edge of the pond. The eighteen species identified were:

Downy Woodpecker
Hairy Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
Blue Jay
American Crow
Northern Rough-winged Swallow
Black-capped Chickadee
Tufted Titmouse
Wood Thrush
Cedar Waxwing
Gray Catbird
Black-and-White Warbler
Song Sparrow
Northern Cardinal
Indigo Bunting
Red-winged Blackbird
Common Grackle
Baltimore Oriole

In addition to these birds that were identified while the two classes were with me I was able to identify the following birds either before or after students were in the Sanctuary.

Turkey Vulture
Great Crested Flycatcher
Eastern Phoebe
Red-eyed Vireo
White-breasted Nuthatch
Carolina Wren
American Robin
Yellow Warbler
Chipping Sparrow
Gold Finch

A total of 35 species were identified during the day including birds seen by the two classes and what were observed when I was by myself. A very good day indeed.

Owl Pellet Dissecting at Altamont Elementary School

2010-05-24T18:27:00.000-07:00

On Monday, May 24, I visited the Altamont Elementary School. I met with two 4th grade classes to learn about owls. Here are the results of the owl pellet dissection that we did.

Miss Flanagan’s class dissected 11 pellets and found 28 mice, 1 shrew, 0 moles and 0 birds
Mrs. Vogel’s class dissected 11 pellets and found 36 mice, 0 shrews, 1 mole and 0 birds

The average number of animals found per pellet for the two classes was 3. This is a little higher than usual. Check the other owl pellet dissections here on the blog and you’ll find that the average number of animals per pellet is about two and half. This larger than average number is probably the result of dissecting pellets that came from owls that had feasted on a family of mice. These pellets had 5 or 6 skulls that were very small. These small skulls were probably from young mice. The owl would have heard the squeaking sounds made by the young mice in a nest. It would have swooped down on the nest and eaten all the mice there at one time.

By combining these number with the numbers found in other owl pellet dissections you can see if mice are indeed the most favored food, with shrews being a second choice and moles and bird not often eaten.

Landis Arboretum Early Morning Bird Walk, Saturday, May 22

2010-05-23T19:54:00.000-07:00

We had gorgeous weather for our annual Arboretum Spring Bird Walk. The weather was great for us and for the gnats. There were clouds of gnats that followed our small group of 10 bird watchers (including Kate, a crackerjack bird watcher at the age of 10). We identified 44 species of birds. We had a great look at a Scarlet Tanager that was sitting on top of a dead snag in clear view for all. A couple of Cedar Waxwings in a shadbush showed off their gorgeous “wax-tipped” wings and tails. Bluebirds abounded every where, including the area around the greenhouse and barn where we saw them gobbling up caterpillars.

There were several birds that we often get on our spring bird walk but missed this day. They include Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Black-throated Green Warbler, Indigo Bunting, Veery and a bunch of the woodpeckers – Downy, Hairy, Pileated and Northern Flicker.

Along with all the birds we discovered two small red efts along the woodland trail, heard many green frogs in the wet areas, heard many chipmunks in and around the woodlands and spotted a painted turtle in the pond down slope from the great oak.

Here are the birds we got.

Great Blue Heron
Canada Goose
Ruby-throated Hummingbird
Rock Pigeon
Mourning dove
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
Eastern Wood-Pewee
Eastern Phoebe
Great Crested Flycatcher
Eastern Kingbird
Red-eyed Vireo
Blue Jay
American Crow
Tree Swallow
Black-capped Chickadee
Tufted Titmouse
Red-breasted Nuthatch
House Wren
Eastern Bluebird
Wood Thrush
American Robin
Gray Catbird
Brown Thrasher
Cedar Waxwing
Blue-winged Warbler
Yellow Warbler
Chestnut-sided Warbler
Black-throated Blue Warbler
Black-and-White Warbler
American Redstart
Common Yellowthroat
Ovenbird
Scarlet Tanager
Northern Cardinal
Eastern Towhee
Chipping Sparrow
Field Sparrow
Song Sparrow
Baltimore Oriole
Red-winged Blackbird
Common Grackle
Brown-headed Cowbird
American Gold Finch
House Finch

Leptondale Ornithologists Study Owl Pellets

2010-05-18T17:39:00.000-07:00

I send my apologies to the 4th grade ornithologists that I worked with last week at the Leptondale Elementary School in Wallkill. I had told them that I would post this data over the weekend, but I got caught up in a whole bunch of house and yard work (actually trying to repair my garage roof that was damaged by one of the late winter snow storms) and have now just gotten to looking over the data and writing this report.

I visited with Mrs. Psilopoulos’s and Mrs. Dannemann’s classes on Thursday, May 13th and Mr. Zupan’s class on Friday, May 14th. Here are the results of the owl pellet dissections.

Mrs. P’s class – 10 pellets dissected, 33 mice, 1 shrew, 0 moles and 0 birds found
Mrs. D’s class – 13 pellets dissected, 28 mice, 1 shrew, 0 moles and 0 birds found
Mr. Z’s class – 13 pellets dissected, 33 mice, 2 shrew, 0 moles and 1 bird found

There was an unusually high number of mice (the average number of mice per pellet is between 2 to 3) in some of the pellets. In these pellets most of the mice skulls were very small. This is likely the result of the owls finding a mouse nest, and eating all of the baby mice in the nest (actually these are voles, a kind of mouse-like rodent that live in the grass/meadow fields, especially staying in the grass thatch layer close to the ground). The nests would be a hollowed out ball of grass material. The owl upon hearing the baby mouse sounds in the nest would swoop down upon the nest, tear it apart and gobble up all the mice in the nest, eating the babies and perhaps the mom if she was present and did not escape. These pellets had 5 to 7 mice in the pellet with most if not all of them being small skulls from baby mice. A few pellets had 4 or 5 small mouse skulls and 1 large skull. This might have been a situation where the owl ate the mom and all the babies.

Compare these numbers to some of the other owl pellet dissection reported here in my blog.

Second Day of Ornithology Field Trips at Brinton Brook Sanctuary

2010-05-11T18:34:00.000-07:00

We had another good day for ornithology field trips to the Brinton Brook Sanctuary. The temperature for the day pretty much stayed in the the low to mid 50’s. The day started sunny with high altitude light haze. By afternoon it had become completely overcast. A slight breeze held up all day.

Mrs. Liss’s class was the first group starting at 9 and ending the field trip at 10: 30. Mrs. Dillon’s class did the afternoon getting into the field around 12:15 PM and going to 1:15.

Here are the species that were found.

Mrs. Liss’s class

Black Vulture
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Eastern Phoebe
Northern Rough-winged Swallow
Barn Swallow
Black-capped Chickadee
Tufted Titmouse
Wood Thrush (by call)
American Robin
Gray Catbird
Black-throated Green Warbler
Black-and-White Warbler
American Redstart (by song)
Scarlet Tanager
Chipping Sparrow
Song Sparrow
Rose-breasted Grosbeak
Indigo Bunting
Red-winged Blackbird
Common Grackle

Mrs. Dillon’s class

Red-bellied Woodpecker
Downy Woodpecker
Blue Jay
Tufted Titmouse
White-breasted Nuthatch (by call)
Wood Thrush (by song)
American Robin
Gray Catbird
Yellow Warbler (by song)
Blackburnian Warbler
Black-and-White Warbler (by song)
Ovenbird (by song)
Scarlet Tanager
Chipping Sparrow
Song Sparrow (by song)
Northern Cardinal (by song)
Rose-breasted Grosbeak
Indigo Bunting
Baltimore Oriole
Common Grackle

The most interesting observations for both sessions was a red-bellied woodpecker nest. I had discovered the nest earlier in the morning before Mrs. Liss’s class arrived. The nest was in an old dead snag, about 50 feet in the air. We were able to observe both the male and the female coming and going to the nest. Since both birds were coming and going we speculated that their might be young already hatched in the nest.

The indigo bunting was easily observed by both groups. A male in pre-breeding plumage was singing vigorously from several easily observed posts was seen by both groups. Black vulture, eastern phoebe, chipping sparrow, white-breasted nuthatch and blackburnian warbler were birds identified that were missed the day before. Turkey vulture, red-tailed hawk, pileated woodpecker, northern parula and gold finch were birds identified the first day but missed this day.

As in the first day I was able to identify birds before and after the class visits to the Sanctuary. These included mourning dove, American crow, northern flicker, veery, red-eyed vireo, gold finch, red-tailed hawk, brown-headed cowbird and magnolia warbler.

In the two days of doing field trips 43 species of birds were identified. I am sure there were other warblers that were missed because I could not identify them by song. The warblers are often so high in the trees that the only way to identify them is by their song.

May 10 Ornithology Field Trips to Brinton Brook Sanctuary

2010-05-10T15:27:00.000-07:00

The weather cooperated today for our ornithology field trip to the Brinton Brook Sanctuary. The weather started in the low 50’s and worked it way up into the upper 50’s. There was a strong fairly steady breeze from the Northwest and it was mostly clear sky.

There were two field groups, Mrs. Zabbia’s class that was in the field from 9 to 10: 30 in the morning and Mrs. Barkan’s class that was afield from 12:15 PM to about 1.

Here are the species that were found.

Mrs. Zabbia’s class

Turkey Vulture
Red-tailed Hawk
Red-bellied Woodpecker (by call)
Pileated Woodpecker (by call)
Blue Jay
Northern Rough-winged Swallow
Barn Swallow
Black-capped Chickadee
Tufted Titmouse
Wood Thrush (by call)
American Robin
Gray Catbird
Yellow Warbler (by song)
Black-throated Green Warbler (by song)
Black-and-White Warbler
American Redstart (by song)
Ovenbird (by song)
Scarlet Tanager
Eastern Towhee
Northern Cardinal
Red-winged Blackbird
Common Grackle

Mrs. Barkan’s class

Turkey Vulture
Red-tailed Hawk
Red-bellied Woodpecker (by call)
Downy Woodpecker
Blue Jay (by call)
Tufted Titmouse
American Robin
Gray Catbird
Northern Parula (by song)
Yellow Warbler (by song)
Black-and-White Warbler (by song)
Scarlet Tanager
Eastern Towhee
Song Sparrow (by song)
Northern Cardinal
Rose-breasted Grosbeak (by song)
Indigo Bunting
Baltimore Oriole
Gold Finch (by song and call)

Because of time constraints Mrs. Barkan’s class did not get as far as Mrs. Zabbia’s class and missed out on the pond habitat. There were several species found only at the pond. These included the two kinds of swallows, the red-winged blackbird and the common grackle. It was rather unusual to have such a number of barn swallows coursing about the pond hunting for insects. It is more common to see tree swallows doing that and we did not see a single tree swallow. The morning group had a good look at a couple of black-and-white warblers, but the afternoon group only heard them. The afternoon group had some great views of Baltimore orioles and indigo buntings, both birds completely missed in the morning.

I was able to use a new device that I had just purchased from Wild Birds Unlimited in Saratoga, an I Flyer bird song player. This hand held “wand” scans a bar code for species found in the I Flyer BarCode ScanBook and then plays a good quality reproduction of that species’ call or song. This is a handy tool in teaching bird songs. Since many of the birds were identified just by the calls or songs that we heard knowledge of bird songs is important. Check the links below to both Wild Birds Unlimited and I Flyer.

After the second class finished and left I spent a little more time along the trail from the road to the pond. I picked up a few other species that were not seen or heard by either group. These included and eastern phoebe by it’s song, a Carolina wren along the roadway near the houses and two mallard ducks at the pond. In addition I was able to observe both the northern parula and the American redstart.

It will be interesting to see what the Tuesday classes will find.

Second Bird Survey at Kings Elementary

2010-05-06T07:31:00.000-07:00

The second bird survey at Kings Elementary in Warwick was on Tuesday, May 4th with Ms. Davis’s 5th Grade class. As with my previous ornithology visit with Mrs. Shook's class we started our walk with a short discussion of what an ornithologist might do to conduct a bird survey, how they would identify birds by sight and sound and how they would take field notes. Each student was given a pair of binoculars and instructions on how to use them.

The walk started at about 2:15 PM. The weather was good with the temperature in the upper 60’s. There were strong gusts of wind from the west. The sky was about 75% cloudy with a few intermittent rain drops.

These were the birds identified:

Turkey Vulture – 3
Common Flicker – 1
Red-bellied Woodpecker – 1
Downy Woodpecker – 2
Eastern Phoebe – 1
American Crow – 2
Tree Swallow – 5
Tufted Titmouse – 1
Eastern Bluebird – 2
American Robin – 10
Northern Mockingbird – 1
European Starling – 1
Chipping Sparrow – 2
Northern Cardinal – 1
Rose-breasted Grossbeak – 1
Baltimore Oriole – 1
Red-winged Blackbird – 3
Brown-headed Cowbird – 3
American Goldfinch – 7
House Sparrow – 1

The Rose-breasted Grossbeak that we saw was the female. We looked for the strikingly colored male but couldn’t find one. The Northern Mockingbird was identified by its song, actually songs, since it is a mimic, singing the songs of many different kinds of birds. It is quite unusual to have only one European Starling and one House Sparrow, as these birds are often found in groups. It is also likely that there were many more Red-winged Blackbirds in the wetland area behind the school and we just didn’t see them.

Compare these findings with Mrs. Shook’s class that went out on April 30th. In just a few days time there has been a return of several migrant birds. This will continue through the middle of May and the ornithology classes on June 10th should have even more species as by then all of the returning migrants will be back.

Brinton Brook Sanctuary Preview Trip

2010-05-03T14:48:00.001-07:00

My ornithology and terrestrial ecology field trips for 5th graders at Pierre Van Cortlandt Middle school was postponed today. Instead I met with classes and talked about careers in ecology, how 5th graders might prepare for those careers and how they might someday then be involved in situations like the current oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

After my time at school I went to the Brinton Brook Sanctuary (a Saw Mill River Audubon site) to check out the trails for P V C classes that I will be taking there. It was windy, but the rain had stopped. There was still a slight overcast.

These are the birds that I saw or heard:

Wood Duck
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Downy Woodpecker (ID’ed by sound)
Blue Jay
American Crow (ID’ed by sound)
Black-capped Chickadee
Tufted Titmouse
Wood Thrush
American Robin
Black-throated Green Warbler (ID’ed by sound)
Scarlet Tanager
Eastern Towhee
Northern Cardinal
Red-winged Blackbird
Common Grackle
Baltimore Oriole

Our field trips are scheduled for next week. I am hoping that we have good weather and since it will be the height of migration I hope that there will be more species to see and hear.

Bird Survey at King Elementary

2010-05-02T19:33:00.000-07:00

On Friday, April 30 I conducted a bird survey around the King Elementary School in Warwick with Mrs. Shook’s 5th Grade class. We started our walk with a short discussion of what an ornithologist might do to conduct a bird survey, how they would identify birds by sight and sound and how they would take field notes. Each student was given a pair of binoculars and instructions on how to use them.

Our walk started at about 2:15 PM. The weather was good with the temperature in the upper 60’s to low 70’s. There was slight breeze from the west, with mostly clear skies.

These were the birds identified:

Turkey Vulture – 6
Black Vulture – 5
Osprey – 1
Red-tailed Hawk – 1
Blue Jay – 2
American Crow – 2
Tree Swallow – 2
Eastern Bluebird – 1
American Robin – 1
Northern Mockingbird – 1
Chipping Sparrow – 3
Red-winged Blackbird – 1
Brown-headed Cowbird – 3

Owl Pellet Dissection with Mrs. Sirico’s 3rd Graders

2010-05-02T19:07:00.000-07:00

On Friday, April 30 I worked with Mrs. Sirico’s 3rd Grade students as ornithologists studying the predator-prey relationship of owls. We dissected 11 Barn Owl pellets and found 31 mice, 1 shrew, 2 moles and no birds. The average of 3.1 prey per pellet is a bit higher than usual, as is the 2 moles being eaten and only 1 shrew. Compare these numbers to other owl pellet dissections in my blog. If we add this data to the data collected with other classes we see that mice are still the preferred food, with shrews a second choice and mole and birds a third.

Landis Arboretum Hawk Watch

2010-04-28T19:08:00.000-07:00

What a beautiful day at the Landis Arboretum in Esperance, Schoharie Co. It was a great day, although did not get the number of hawks that I was hoping for.

Here is what we saw as far as raptors -

Bald Eagle - 1
Broad-winged Hawk - 4
Sharp-shinned Hawk - 2
Northern Harrier - 1
Red-tailed Hawk - 3*
Turkey Vulture - 5*
Unidentified Raptor - 6
Unidentified Buteo - 3

*the most seen at one time

Most interesting raptor not seen was Osprey, as I have seen that raptor on most of my spring hawk watches at the Arboretum when the weather was cooperative.

In addition to these raptors the follow birds were identified during the day -

Mallard
Rock Pigeon
Northern Flicker
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
Eastern Phoebe
Tree Swallow
Blue Jay
Common Raven
American Crow
Black-capped Chickadee
Red-breasted Nuthatch
Brown Thrasher
American Robin
Eastern Bluebird
Red-winged Blackbird
Brown-headed Cowbird
Northern Cardinal
Purple Finch
House Finch
American Goldfinch
Eastern Towhee
Dark-eyed Junco
Chipping Sparrow
Field Sparrow
Song Sparrow

Plattekill Bird Survey

2010-04-11T12:27:00.000-07:00

On Friday, April 9th, I did two bird walks with students at the Plattekill Elementary School in Wallkill, NY. Here is the Bird Survey Report for the walk with 2nd grade ornithologists in Mrs. Bailey's, Mrs. Moran's and Mrs. Bouk's classes.

Mrs. Bailey’s and Bouck’s classes
9:15 AM, 100% cloudy, slight breeze, seasonably cool

Canada Goose – 2
Turkey Vulture – 1
Killdeer – 1
Mourning Dove – 1
Blue Jay – 3
Fish Crow – 1
American Robin – 4
European Starling – 5
Common Grackle – 3
Chipping Sparrow – 1
House Sparrow – 4

Mrs. Moran’s and Bouck’s classes
10:15 AM, 100% cloudy, slight breeze, seasonably cool

Mourning Dove – 3
Northern Flicker – 1
Blue Jay – 11
American Crow – 1
American Robin – 3
European Starling – 6
Red-winged Blackbird – 1
Common Grackle – 4
Chipping Sparrow – 1
House Sparrow – 4

On both walks there were many birds that were observed but went by unidentified. Binoculars would have been very useful for observing these birds. Unfortunately there was not a supply of binoculars sized for second grader eyes. It would be a great to have a classroom set of compact binoculars for younger students. Compact binoculars can be adjusted to fit the intrapupilarry distances of young ornithologists.

For some birds the identification was made by the bird's song or call. A good example of this is the American Crow which has a very distinctly different call than the American Crow. Two other birds were identified by their songs, the Chipping Sparrow and the Killdeer. The Chipping Sparrow has a song that is a series of chips that is sung to a tempo that makes it sound like a sewing machine. Hence I suggested to the students that it was the “sewing machine bird”. We were able to see the sparrow fly about, but it was far enough away to pretty much look like and "LBJ" - a Little Brown Jobber. The Killdeer was only heard and never observed. It was calling from a gravel parking lot where it might eventually nest right on the ground not making much of a nest but with eggs that blend right in with a gravel environment.

We can compare this survey with the bird walk that was done with Plattekill’s sister elementary school, Ostrander Elmentary. To see the Ostrander data, check Ornithology at Ostrander Elementary entry for March 16th.

Owl Pellet Study at Kings Elementary School

2010-04-08T15:42:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday, April 7, I visited the Kings Elementary School in Warwick to work with 3rd graders studying owls. Part of our study was to dissect owl pellets to see what their favorite food is. Here is what we found:

Mrs. Flynn’s class – 8 pellets dissected, with 20 mice, 0 shrews, 0 moles, 1 bird
Mrs. Nachtigal’s class – 10 pellets dissected, with 26 mice, 0 shrews, 0 moles, 0 birds
Mr. Dinoto’s and Mrs. Kipp’s classes – 23 pellets dissected, with 63 mice, 0 shrews, 0 moles, 2 birds

In our discussion before dissecting the owl pellets I had presented the idea that the most favored food for owls were mice and that shrews were a secondary food and moles and birds were much less often eaten. It was very interesting to find with the 41 pellets that were dissected that there was no evidence that any shrews had been eaten and that, in fact, 3 birds were part of the owls’ prey.

Compare these findings with owl pellets dissections that I have reported here on my blog - most recently Lynnwood and Ostrander Elementary Schools, Jefferson Elementary in February 2010 and Nazareth Intermediate School in January 2010 (there are other reports - look for them in the archived blogs). The average number of animals eaten per owl pellets is pretty much consistent with the findings of other classes. If this data is combined with the data from other classes it does show the moles and birds are much less eaten than mice and shrews.

Cape May Birding Trip

2010-04-06T14:38:00.000-07:00

I had a few days off with no school programs scheduled so I decided to take a little trip south to Cape May, New Jersey, to look for birds including early migrants. Cape May is actually a fall birding hot spot, but it’s not at all bad for over wintering birds and spring migrants. I started my visit with a stop at the Cape May Bird Observatory Northwood Center to get a map and find out where to go looking for birds. As soon as I got out of my car I spotted a brown thrasher – ah, a bird I wouldn’t see at home in upstate New York at this time of year.

I birded at the Cape May Point State Park, Concrete Ship, the Nature Conservancy’s Cape May Migratory Bird Refuge, Higbee Beach Wildlife Management Area and a section of the Cape May Canal off of Seashore Road (there had been a black-necked stilt seen there, but it escaped me).

I first took a walk around the trails at Cape May State Park where I had the chance to see a sharp-shinned hawk scoot in and scare up the Carolina chickadees, pine warblers and robins. The warning calls of the chickadees were quite distinct from the black-capped chickadee call which I am more familiar with. I observed a large number of osprey, including one that had caught a fish. Also had great looks at hermit thrush and Carolina wren moving about on the ground just off of the board walk trail.

At the Concrete Ship there were a large number of red-throated loons (which at this time of year in New Jersey have no red on their throats), northern gannets and black and surf scoters. Then it was off to the Nature Conservancy site.

The most interesting finds include piping plover at the Bird Refuge. While enjoying the plovers which were along the sandy beach not much more than twenty feet from me two American oystercatchers came squawking their way to a small pool of water twenty feet on the other side of me. Though not the rare bird the plovers are still a very cool bird to see up close. Along with these two species of birds there was a nice variety of ducks.

On the way to Higbee Beach I looked for the black-necked stilt at an impoundment just off of the Cape May Canal, with no luck. I stopped at Higbee Beach mostly to check it out so I knew where to go for an early morning bird walk with CMBO staff and volunteers. There were a lot of yellow-rumped warblers feeding about the upper tree branches. The early morning walk was super with my only sightings of palm warbler, Bonaparte’s gull and red-breasted merganser for my little trip. There was also large flight of northern flickers.

I had 63 species for the entire trip. Here is a list of the birds I got.

Mute Swan
Snow Goose
Canada Goose
Mallard
Gadwall
Northern Pintail
American Wigeon
Northern Shoveler
Blue-winged Teal
Green-winged Teal
Ring-necked Duck
Lesser Scaup
Surf Scoter
Black Scoter
Red-breasted Merganser
Red-throated Loon
Pied-billed Grebe
Northern Gannet
Double-crested Cormorant
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret
Turkey Vulture
Black Vulture
Sharp-shinned Hawk
Cooper’s Hawk
Northern Harrier
Red-tailed Hawk
Osprey
Piping Plover
American Oystercatcher
Sanderling
Bonaparte's Gull
Laughing Gull
Herring Gull
Great Black-backed Gull
Rock Pigeon
Mourning Dove
Belted Kingfisher
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Downy Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
Eastern Phoebe
Blue Jay
American Crow
Fish Crow
Tree Swallow
Carolina Chickadee
Tufted Titmouse
Carolina Wren
Hermit Thrush
American Robin
Northern Mockingbird
Brown Thrasher
European Starling
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Palm Warbler
Pine Warbler
Eastern Towhee
Field Sparrow
Song Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow
Dark-eyed Junco
Northern Cardinal
Red-winged Blackbird
Common Grackle
Brown-headed Cowbird
House Sparrow
House Finch

Another Bird Species Account by 3rd Grader

2010-03-28T14:38:00.000-07:00

Michael Castellana was so inspired to be an ornithologist he's done more research on another bird. Here is his second species account, this one on the Indigo Bunting. Again, my appologies in not being able to download the pictures that he included in his write-up.

Indigo Bunting
Size: 51/2” (14 cm)
Male: Vibrant blue finch-like bird. Scattered dark markings on wings and tail.
Female: Light brown bird with faint markings.
Juvenile: Similar to female.
Nest: Cup; female builds; 2 broods per year.
Eggs: 3-4; pale blue without markings.
Incubation: 12-13 days; females incubates.
Fledging: 10-11 days; female feeds young.
Migration: Complete, to southern Florida, Mexico and Central and South America.
Food: Insects, seeds, fruit; will visit seed feeders.
Compare: Male Eastern Bluebird is larger and has a rusty red breast.

Bird Taxonomy and Bird Lists

2010-03-27T18:41:00.000-07:00

As part of my ecologist visit at Ostrander Elementary we did a bird survey. I explained to the students how ornithologist might take field notes. I learned long time ago of a four letter coding system for the common names of birds listed in the American Ornithological Union (AOU). In researching the use of field notes for ornithologist I've found that several scientists have proposed a six letter coding system (go to http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bbowman/birds/sixlettercode.html). Both systems use the first letters of the common names of birds. In the four letter system that I am familiar with, birds that have a single word name the abreviation for that bird would be the first four letters of its name. For birds with two names, the first two letter of the first name are combined with the first two letters of the last name to come up with the four letter abreviation. In the case of birds with three names, which includes hyphenated names, the first letter of each of the first two names are used with the first two letters of the last name. For birds with four names, the first letter of each name is used for the abreviated name. There are some cases with the four letter system where there are two birds with the same abreviation (i.e. Barn Owl and Barred Owl). This is where the six letter system would work better.

Here are the abreviations for the birds that we identified on our bird walks at Ostrander.

Red-tailed Hawk - RTHA
Ring-Billed Gull - RBGU
Rock Pigeon - ROPI
Mourning Dove - MODO
Northern Flicker - NOFL
Red-bellied Woodpecker - RBWO
Downy Woodpecker - DOWO
Blue Jay - BLJA
American Crow - AMCR
Fish Crow - FICR
Black-capped Chickadee - BCCH
Tufted Titmouse - TUTI
White-breasted Nuthatch - WBNU
Brown Creeper - BRCR
Northern Mockingbird - NOMO
American Robin - AMRO
European Starling - EUST
House Sparrow - HOSP
Red-winged Blackbird - RWBL
Common Grackle - COGR
Northern Cardinal - NOCA
Song Sparrow -SOSP

I have arranged the list above in what scientist call taxonomic order. This is the order in which birds are classified to show the close relationships between them. For example ducks and geese are very similar types of birds and are classified as Anseriformes. Gulls, although they are found near water and even swim on the surface like ducks are more like shorebirds, so they are classified as Charadriiformes. Most of the birds we observed around the school are called perching birds, which scientist would call Passeriformes. Although the red-tailed hawk perches in tree branches its body, wings and beak shape and its behaviors are not like that of the Passeriforms. These characteristics of the red-tailed hawk are shared by all hawks, falcons and eagles. These birds are called Falconiformes. Just to confuse you, owls, although they might look and act a lot like hawks are not included with the Falconiforms. Can you think why? The owls belong in the group Strigiformes.

There were 22 species of birds observed on my bird walks with 3rd graders over the three week period of my ecology visit. As spring time progresses and the migrant birds return there might be more than twice an many species that would be found around Ostrander Elementary. These might include: Turkey Vulture, Black Vulture, Sharp-shinned Hawk, Bald Eagle, American Kestrel, Wild Turkey, Killdeer, Eastern Screech-owl, Chimney Swift, Ruby-throated Hummingbird, Hairy Woodpecker, Pileated Woodpecker Eastern Kingbird, Eastern Phoebe, Olive-sided Flycatcher, Barn Swallow, House Wren, Carolina Wren, Gray Catbird, Brown Thrasher, Eastern Bluebird, Cedar Waxwing, Red-eyed Vireo, Yellow Warbler, Chestnut-sided Warbler, Common Yellowthroat, Baltimore Oriole, Brown-headed Cowbird, Rose-breasted Grossbeak, Purple Finch, House Finch, American Goldfinch, and Chipping Sparrow. Some ornithologists keep a list of the birds that they see in a particular area. You could use this list to create a checklist and record the bird species observed over the course of the school year.

3rd Grade Ornithologists Report

2010-03-27T18:20:00.000-07:00

Michael Castellana, in Mrs. McQuiston's third grade class did some research on the Scarlet Tanager after our bird walk on Friday. He sent his report to me and kindly gave me permission to post it on my blog. He included photographs of the male and female Tanager, but I have had difficulty posting those. I will work on that and hopefully will be able to include the two photographs in the post in the future.

Here is the report Michael sent:

Scarlet Tanager
Size: 7” (18 cm)
Male: Bright scarlet red bird with jet pack wings and tail. Ivory bill and dark eyes.
Female: Drap greenish yellow bird with olive wings and tail, whitish wing linings, dark eyes.
Juvenile: Same as female.
Nest: Platform; female builds; 1 brood per year.
Eggs: 4-5; blue green with brown markings.
Incubation: 13-14 days; female incubates.
Fledging: 9-11 days; female and male feed young.
Migration: Complete, to Central and South America.
Food: Insects, fruit.
Compare: Male Northern Cardinal has a black mask and red bill and lacks the black wings of male Scarlet Tanager.

Bird Walk Make-up

2010-03-27T17:30:00.000-07:00

On Friday, March 26, we were able to do the continuation, actually a second attempt at the bird survey walk with Mrs. McQuiston’s third grade class that we had started on Monday. The weather was much better than on Monday. It was mostly cloudy when we started at 1:10, but then cleared to just a few cirrus clouds. There was a brisk breeze from the northeast. It was seasonally cool. We took the same route clockwise around the school that I had done with the other 3rd grade classes.

We were able to observe and count the following birds:

American Robin – 9
American Crow – 5
House Sparrow – 8
Tufted Titmouse – 2
Red-winged Blackbird – 30
European Starling – 3
Red-tailed Hawk – 1
Black-capped Chickadee – 1
White-breasted Nuthatch – 2
Mourning Dove – 1
Song Sparrow – 1
Red-bellied Woodpecker – 1
Downy Woodpecker – 1

We saw an American Crows carrying nest material, small sticks, flying in the same direction that had been observed by another class.

Spring Bird Survey at Ostrander - Third Class

2010-03-26T09:09:00.000-07:00

On Monday, March 22, we had a bird survey walk with Mrs. McQuiston’s third grade class. The weather was iffy – completely cloudy, light drizzle and a light breeze with a mild temperature. We weren’t sure if we would be able to do the walk because of the weather, but decided to give it a try. After about half an hour the rain became more steady and decided to head back inside and do another walk later in the week.

We were able to observe and count the following birds around the school building:

American Robin – 4
American Crow – 2
House Sparrow – 3
Tufted Titmouse – 2
Blue Jay – 5
Northern Mockingbird – 1
Northern Cardinal – 3
Common Grackle – 4
Red-winged Blackbird – 10
Fish Crow – 1
European Starling – 12

We saw two American Crows carrying nest material, small sticks, flying toward the tree line behind the school. We plan to look for the nest. The Fish Crow was identified by its distinctive call. The Cardinals were very active doing there mating/territory calls all around the school.

We hope that Friday, our alternate day, will have better weather.

Lynnwood Elementary Ornithologists Study Owls

2010-03-19T14:03:00.000-07:00

Today Lynnwood 4th grade ornithologist studied owl with me. Four classes dissected owl pellets and found the following.

Mrs. Janssen’s class dissected 11 pellets and found 31 mice, 1 shrew, 0 moles, 0 birds
Mrs. Lodge’s class dissected 9 pellets and found 21 mice, 2 shrew, 0 moles, 0 birds
Mrs. Shields’ class dissected 11 pellets and found 30 mice, 1 shrew, 1 moles, 0 birds
Mr. Freeman’s class dissected 10 pellets and found 29 mice, 1 shrew, 0 moles, 0 birds

All four fourth grades combined dissected 41 pellets and found 111 mice, 5 shrew, 1 mole and 0 birds. Do these numbers support the hypothesis that was discussed in class?

During one class our discussion touched on how many animals does an owl eat for a meal. For this we need to look at our data and calculate an average. Now for most 4th graders this will be a new mathematical computation. To get an average, of course, we need to total the number of animals found in the pellets, 117, and divide it by the number of pellets dissected, 41. The average for our data therefore is 2.9, almost 3 animals per meal. Compare this average to the averages for owl pellet dissections done by other classes (see - Ostrander Elementary on March 8, 9 and 10; Jefferson Elementary on February 3; Nazareth Intermediate School on January 25, 26 and 28; and Circleville Elementary on November 4, 2009 - there are other investigation recorded on dates previous to these that you can search for in the blog). You will find that this is a little higher. Why might this be? Remember, ever scientist starts their science work with a question.

There might be a couple of reasons why. One might be a result of the start of the spring season. The owl pellets that were dissected were collected soon after they were produced by wild owls. That means these pellets show what the owls are eating now, in the early spring. The mice in northern California, Oregon and Washington, where these pellets come from have already started there reproductive cycles. Owls would hear the sounds and activity of a mouse nest, land on the nest and eat up the mouse family all at once. Indeed, there were several pellets dissected that had 5 or 6 mice in them, with all of the skulls being quite small. This would support this hypothesis, since the small skulls would be from young mice.

Another possibility is that the pellets dissected were not an average sample of owl pellets. Since I order many pellets from Pellets Inc. and I had to pay extra for a rush order to get these in time for our study, the sales representative told me he would make sure we had large pellets. Large pellets usually might occur when an owl eats a larger than usual meal. If he was carefully picking large pellets for our order that might result in a larger average of animals per pellet change our findings.

Ostrander Elementary Bird Walk

2010-03-16T14:41:00.000-07:00

I just finished a bird walk with Ms. Missale’s and Mrs. Wager’s 3rd grade classes at Ostrander Elementary School in Wallkill. We did a survey of the birds at the school. Here is our data.

Our walk started at about 2:00 PM. The weather was good with no clouds and a slight breeze from the East. We were able to identify the following birds as we walked around the school.

American Robin – 3
Rock Pigeon – 2
American Crow – 15
House Sparrow – 6
Ring-billed Gull – 4
Mourning Dove – 3
Tufted Titmouse – 1
Blue Jay – 1
Brown Creeper – 2
Downy Woodpecker – 1
White-breasted Nuthatch – 1
Red-tailed Hawk – 3

We also observed four gulls that may have been Ring-billed Gulls but they were too far away to be sure.

We can compare our findings with the bird survey that was done with Mrs. Stokes class on Tuesday, March 9th. What do we find? Why might there be these similarities or differences? Unfortunately we didn’t record the weather conditions that day. That may have affected what birds we observed and how many there were. Of course our observations today are a week later. As spring approaches there will be more birds arriving from their winter habitats, but the birds observed today and last week are all birds that have been here all winter.

We will be doing one last bird survey with Mrs. McQuiston’s class on Monday, March 22. What might those finding be? How might they compare with the previous two bird surveys.

Another Ostrander Owl Ecology Class

2010-03-10T18:13:00.000-08:00

I finished my last owl ecology session at Ostrander Elementary School with Mrs. Busse’s 2nd grade class. We dissected 14 pellets and found 30 mice, 7 shrews, 2 moles and no birds. Check out other owl dissection data from presentations I have done previously, including the results from the two other second grade Ostrander classes in earlier blog entries.

Ornithology at Ostrander Elementary School

2010-03-09T14:39:00.000-08:00

I am continuing my Ecologist-In-Residence program at Ostrander Elementary School in Wallkill. Today we were ornithologists with Mrs. Stokes 3rd grade class doing a spring bird inventory of the school yard. Our walk was at 1:45 in the afternoon. We counted the following birds:

Common Grackle – 6
Ring-billed Gull – 4
American Crow – 38
House Sparrow – 4
Mourning Dove – 3
European Starling – 3
Red-winged Blackbird – 11
Blue Jay – 1

I had been doing General Ecology walks with 1st grade classes earlier in the day and there was much more bird activity. During those walks we saw over 1000 Canada Geese. We also observed a Red-tailed Hawk, several more Blue Jays and many more American Crows.

The habitat for birds at Ostrander is very good. As the spring season moves forward more birds will return from their winter homes and many more species could be counted at the school. I have two more third grade ornithology session scheduled next week. It will be interesting to see what the bird species counts will be for those classes. I will post those findings here after I have done those walks.

Owl Pellet Study at Ostrander Elementary School

2010-03-08T16:01:00.000-08:00

I visited the Ostrander Elementary School in Wallkill, NY today. I had two 2nd grade classes where we studied the common owls of the area and dissected owl pellets. Here is the data that was collected.

Mrs. Dutka’s class dissected 12 pellets and found 23 mice, 0 shrew, 0 moles and 1 bird
Mrs. Lazinski’s class dissected 10 pellets and found 19 mice, 2 shrew, 1 mole and 1 bird

A total of 22 pellets were dissected in which we found 42 mice, 2 shrews, 1 mole and 2 birds. What does this tell us about the favorite food of owls?

We will be taking apart owl pellets in other 2nd grade classes. We can add those findings to these to get a better idea of owl food preference. In addition we can look at the findings of other schools here on my blog. Check out my blog for February 3 at Jefferson Elementary, late January at Bushkill Elementary and November 4 at Circleville Elementary, among the recent school visits where I studied owls with elementary ornithologists.

Aquatic Macroinvertebrate Survey with Pierre Van Cortlandt Middle School 5th Graders

2010-02-21T10:27:00.001-08:00

Earlier in February I visited the Piere van Cortlandt Middle School in Croton-On-Hudson. We did a survey of aquatic macroinvertebrates from pond water samples taken from a pond at the Landis Arboretum in Esperance, NY. These samples were taken from under the ice covering the pond which was about a foot thick.

Zabbia (first class first day), Ernau (second class first day), Dillon (third class first day), Barkan (first class second day), Herbert (second class second day), Liss (third class second day)
Waterboatmen - Dillon 1, Barkan 2, Herbert 3, Liss 1
Nematode - Dillon 3
Crawling Water Beetle - Ernau 3, Dillon 5, Barkan 3, Herbert 5, Liss 6
Dragonfly - Zabbia 34, Ernau 40, Dillon 39, Barkan 42, Herbert 31, Liss 35
Caddisfly - Zabbia 20, Ernau 27, Dillon 21, Barkan 18, Herbert 17, Liss 15
Backswimmer - Zabbia 4, Ernau 8, Dillon 8, Barkan 2, Herbert 8, Liss 6
Leech - Zabbia 5, Ernau 2, Dillon 3, Barkan 2, Herbert 2, Liss 2
Mayfly - Zabbia 16, Ernau 1, Dillon 1, Barkan 5
Bloodworm Midge - Zabbia 7, Ernau 11, Dillon 3, Barkan 5, Herbert 4
Freshwater Shrimp - Ernau 2, Dillon 2, Barkan 2
Giant Waterbug - Zabbia 4, Dillon 1, Barkan 1, Herbert 1
Cranefly - Dillon 1
Daphnia - Zabbia 1, Ernau 2, Dillon 1
Damselfly - Zabbia 10, Ernau 11, Dillon 4, Barkan 8, Herbert 7, Liss 3
Snail - Zabbia 2, Dillon 3, Barkan 3, Herbert 2, Liss 6
Water Pennies* - Ernau 1, Barkan 6,
Adalphia** - Barkan 1
Riffle Beetles*** - Barkan 2
Stonefly**** - Liss 1

* Water Pennies are the immature stage of the riffle beetles and occur only in streams. Since our samples came from a pond these wouldn’t be found there. I am not sure what creature may have been mistaken for a water penny.
** I think there was some confusion in the writing of the name “daphnia” which resulted in this entry.
*** Riffle beetles are found only in streams. The beetles identified as riffle beetles were most likely crawling water beetles.
**** Stoneflies occur mostly in streams or large lakes. They do not occur in the pond where our samples were taken. I suspect this specimen was really a damselfly.

In our first study of aquatic macroinvertebrates, the samples taken from the duck pond, we were doing a qualitative study. In a qualitative study we are looking at what kind of life occurs in that habitat. With this study we were looking for not only what is there but in what amounts. This would a quantitative study. Depending on what information a scientist is looking for they might do either studies.

I was interested in knowing how well 5th grade scientist might be at finding and identifying aquatic macroinvertebrates, a quantitative study. I wanted to know not only whether the 5th graders would find dragonflies, for example, but how many they would find. If the numbers of dragonflies found by the six classes varied widely I would then presume that there was wide range of ability at finding these creatures. In fact, students were quite capable at finding the macroinvertebrates, especially the larger size ones like damselflies, dragonflies and caddisflies.

As we did our investigation I began to wonder about the midge fly larvae, also called bloodworms. Several students observed bloodworms being eaten by dragonfly nymphs in the uncamouflage containers. It seems from the data that indeed they were being eaten since we found more of them on the first day (11 being the most and an average of 7 being found) as compared to the second day, where the most found was 5 with an average of 3. The bloodworm midges with their bright red color need a lot of hiding places. The investigation tubs must not have provided enough hiding places and they were being eaten.

As with any scientific work the more you do something the better you get at it. As beginning aquatic ecologist I am sure that there were some misidentifications made. For example I know that there was only one waterboatmen in all of the tubs. The waterboatmen look a lot like backswimmers. When I look at the data for waterboatmen I presume that the wide range in the number reported is a result of this misidentification. I’m sure that the extra waterboatmen were in fact backswimmers.

Mistakes in identification can be suspected if we analyze the data. Look at the giant waterbug data. Three classes found one giant waterbug, two found none and one found four. Again, with my experience, I know for sure that there was only one giant waterbug in our samples. When I analyze our findings I see that most teams, if they found a giant waterbug they found only one. I would suspect then that the class that found four likely misidentified the species and mistook some other organism for giant waterbugs.

When we look at most of the other creatures that were counted we see that we get very consistent numbers. In the cases where there was definitely some confusion in identification (the riffle beetles and stoneflies), the species that they likely were fit nicely into the numbers found by other students (the riffle beetles being crawling water beetles and the stonefly being a damselfly). This tells me that students were doing a good job in identifying most of the macroinvertebrates. There is one other species though, where I think there were some mistaken identities. Can you figure out which species this is?

From this data I conclude that 5th grade scientist with guidance, practice and experience a very capable of doing an inventory of aquatic macroinvertebrates. Even though some misidentification might occur the students did a great job in finding and identifying most of the aquatic organisms that we had in the sample tubs.

For more aquatic ecology investigations, including photos of some of the aquatic macroinvertebrates that might be seen in a freshwater pond see blog entry, Pond Ecology at Central Valley and Circleville, dated November 19, 2008.

Jefferson Elementary School Owl Pellet Dissection

2010-02-03T05:36:00.000-08:00

Here are the results for the owl pellet dissection that I did with the 5th grade ornithologists at the Jefferson Elementary School in Rotterdam, NY.

Gorski’s class – 12 pellets dissected, 28 mice, 1 shrew, 0 moles and 0 birds found
Guzewich’s class – 11 pellets dissected, 34 mice, 0 shrews, 0 moles and 0 birds found
Fiske’s class – 10 pellets dissected, 28 mice, 0 shrews, 0 moles and 1 bird found
Zanta’s class – 11 pellets dissected, 24 mice, 3 shrews, 0 moles and 0 birds found
Walker’s class – 10 pellets dissected, 24 mice, 2 shrews, 0 moles and 0 birds found

In our discussion we concluded that we could get a better understanding of what the owls eat if we took apart more pellets. Unfortunately time and money constraints didn’t allow us to take apart more pellets with each class. By looking at the data from all the classes though we are “taking apart more owl pellets”. What does this data tell us about owl food preference?

You can take this further if you can figure out how many pellets an owl might make in a night. This is what most likely happens. Starting at dusk an owl hunts and eats until it’s full. Then the owl finds a roosting place where it will rest, spit out a pellet and digest its food. This whole process might take a couple of hours. Then the owl will go off and hunt some more doing it all over again. Can you figure out how many pellets an owl might produce in a night? If you can, you can also figure out how many mice an owl might eat in a year.

Look through the blog for more owl pellet dissection entries. That would provide even more data to analyze and get a better understanding of owl prey preference.

Day 3 Owl Pellet Analysis at Nazareth Intermediate School

2010-01-28T17:20:00.000-08:00

Here are the results for the third day of the Owl Ecology program for 4th graders at the Nazareth Intermediate School in Nazareth, PA.

Fatsinger’s class – 12 pellets dissected contained 23 mice, 2 shrew, 0 moles, 1 bird
Genua’s class – 13 pellets dissected contained 27 mice, 1 shrew, 0 moles, 0 birds
Reynolds’ class – 13 pellets dissected contained 28 mice, 9 shrews, 1 mole, 0 birds
DeBoer’s class – 13 pellets dissected contained 30 mice, 1 shrew, 0 moles, 0 birds
Reed’s class – 12 pellets dissected contained 27 mice, 0 shrew, 0 moles, 1 bird

A total of 63 pellets were dissected containing a total of 151 animals eaten by barn owls. That gives an average of 2.4 animals eaten per pellet. Compare this to data from previous owl pellet investigations described in this blog.

Day 2 Owl Ecology Program at Nazareth I S

2010-01-26T19:40:00.000-08:00

Here are the results for the second day of the Owl Ecology Program for 4th graders at the Nazareth Intermediate School in Nazareth, PA.

Giemza's class – 11 pellets dissected contained 25 mice, 1 shrew, 0 moles, 0 birds
Miller's class – 13 pellets dissected contained 31 mice, 2 shrews, 0 moles, 0 birds
Rohn's class – 13 pellets dissected contained 25 mice, 2 shrews, 0 moles, 3 birds
McCarron's class – 12 pellets dissected contained 29 mice, 1 shrew, 0 moles, 0 birds

A total of 49 pellets were dissected containing a total of 119 animals eaten by barn owls. That gives an average of 2.4 animals eaten per pellet. Compare this to data from previous owl pellet investigations described in the blog.

An interesting observation in Mrs. Rohn’s class. The three birds were found in one pellet. This was determined by the finding of three bird sternums, or breast bones (a bird sternum is keel shaped, not flat like a mammal sternum, with a bone sticking out perpendicular to the flat breast bone. This gives more muscles attachment points for the bird’s flight muscles). The breast bones were quite small, very likely from young birds. The owl must have found a bird nest with young in the nest and ate all of the young for its meal.

I will update our findings with tomorrow’s results.

Owl Pellet Data from Nazareth IS 25 January 2010

2010-01-25T21:08:00.000-08:00

Here are the results of the first day of the Owl Ecology program for 4th graders at the Nazareth Intermediate School in Nazareth, PA.

Kimble – 11 pellets dissected contained 26 mice, 1 shrew, 0 moles, 0 birds
Veleki – 12 pellets dissected contained 32 mice, 9 shrews, 1 mole, 0 birds
Thomas – 11 pellets dissected contained 30 mice, 3 shrews, 0 moles, 0 birds
Emrick – 12 pellets dissected contained 23 mice, 5 shrews, 0 moles, 0 birds
Roth – 12 pellets dissected contained 25 mice, 5 shrews, 1 mole, 0 birds

A total of 58 pellets were dissected containing a total of 161 animals eaten by barn owls. That gives an average of 2.8 animals eaten per pellet. Compare this to data from previous owl pellet investigations described in the blog.

I will update our findings with tomorrows results.

Recycling at Circleville Elementary

2009-11-05T14:53:00.000-08:00

I was able to convert the fifth grade classrooms at Circleville Elementary School into paper recycling factories. Each recycling engineer made a piece of paper board 10 inches in diameter from recycled newspaper and old homework sheets. In the process they learned how a paper recycling factory would work.

Leading up to the recycling activity was a discussion on trash. Why we need to do something about it and how we can start to lessen the amount of trash we produce. According to the Southeastern Public Service Authority, a solid waste management agency, the average person throws out about 6 pounds of trash per day. That adds up to more than a ton of trash that each of us ends up throwing out every year. What are we going to do with all this trash. Certainly not bury it all in someone's back yard!

Most people are familiar with the 3 “R’s” – Reduce, Reuse and Recycle (I’ve been hearing some talk about adding another “R” – Repair). They are listed that way on purpose. Reduce is the first thing that we should do to deal with our trash problem. Reuse and Recycle are the second and third thing we should be doing. I think most people know a lot about the second and third solutions but they don't know as much about the first, Reduce, and that's the one we should be doing the most. It's the one less understood and more difficult to accomplish.

What does Reduce mean as far as our trash is concerned (I once heard one of my environmental education camp counselors say reducing our trash meant to put it into a compactor and make it smaller. – unfortunately that is not what it means and really does nothing to solve the trash problem)? It really means that we do things so that there is less trash made to begin with. That’s what makes it more difficult to accomplish. Having less trash made means that we all have to make things and buys things differently. Here’s a great example for students to consider.

Many of us like to eat junk food like potato chips, pretzels or cheese doodles. Here we see two different size packages that we can purchase. Buying one of these snacks creates more trash than buying the other. Which one results in more trash?

At first glance we’d think it's the bag on the right. Yes, it is smaller and when thrown away would be less trash than the package on the left (ah, you say “George, we can recycle it!” – yes it is plastic and theoretically recyclable, but in reality there isn’t a market or manufacturer that can do a business of recycling snack packages so even if you save the empty packages there’s no place to take them to be recycled) .

Let’s look deeper, though. If you got the package on the right for snack time and your mom or dad got the package on the left you’d cry out “Not fair!” Of course it wouldn’t be fair. Your dad or mom would end up with more snack. You would get 2 ounces of snack while your parents got 7 ounces (reading labels is very helpful).

In order to make it fair you’d have to buy more of the small packages. How many more? You do the math and you'll see that it is two and a half packages. Oh, oh. You can’t buy two and half packages, so you end up buying three more packages for a total of four packages to get the same amount (actually a little more – which I’m sure wouldn't mind) as your parent.

What does this mean then as far the trash that you will throw into the garbage when you’re done eating the snacks. Let’s do the math; a large bag is 14 inches tall and 8 inches across. That means there would be 112 square inches of plastic going into the garbage. No, wait! There’d be twice that amount. Why? Because there are two pieces of plastic to make the bag, the piece in the front of the bag and the piece in the back. You’d be throwing into the garbage can 224 square inches of plastic.

Let’s look at the small bag. It measures 10 ½ inches tall and 5 ½ inches across which gives us an area of 57 ¾ square inches of plastic. Don’t forget we have to double that for the two pieces of plastic that make up the bag. So one of our little bags is 115 ½ square inches. But we have four of these small bags because we wanted to have the same amount of snacks as mom or dad. So we end up throwing into the trash can 462 square inches of plastic. Four hundred sixtytwo square inches is a lot more than 224 square inches!

Another way to think about this is to figure out (and it means more math) how much plastic there is for each ounce of snack. The large bag, 224 square inches, holds 7 ounces of snack. That means for every ounce of snack you’re throwing out 32 square inches of plastic. The smaller bag that holds 2 ounces is 115 ½ square inches. One ounce of snack from that bag would result in 57 ¾ square inches of plastic going into the trash. As they say, “You do the math!” When you do, you see that the big bag is better!

As you can see in this picture it’s pretty obvious that the large bag ends up being less trash than a number of smaller bags that would have to be bought to give us the same amount of snack.

If we want to reduce the amount of trash we have to try to buy things that do not create more trash. To reduce the amount of plastic thrown into the garbage from snack bags means buying the snacks in large bags instead of small bags. That holds true for all kinds of packages; the larger size package has less packaging per unit volume than the small package.

Of course now mom and dad won’t let you bring the whole 7 ounce bag to school for snack. How will you solve that problem? Will your solution create more trash? Let me know.

Circleville 4th Grade Ornithologist Study Owls

2009-11-04T15:29:00.000-08:00

Owl ecology is one my most popular studies. I always find it very interesting. From the feedback that I get I know the students that I share this with find it as interesting as I do.

I don’t know how many pellets I have dissected with students over the years. Pellets Inc., the company that I buy pellets from (see link to the right), says I’m one of their best customers. Each time I take apart pellets with elementary school ornithologists it is like a treasure hunt – even though I have an idea of what I might find, there are sometimes surprises.

One of the surprises this year with the pellets that I dissected with Circleville Elementary School 4th grade ornithologists was the number of bird skeletons that we found. Out of the 50 pellets that we dissected there were 4 bird skeletons. That might not seem like a lot but if we look at some other data that I have collected over the last few years we do find something unusual.

What’s unusual? Let’s look at the data. Not including what we dissected at Circleville, I have helped students take apart 251 pellets. In all of those pellets we found a total of 7 birds. How does that compare to what we found in our latest investigation? In order to compare we need to do some math. By doing an average we find that for every 36 pellets we dissected we discover 1 bird skeleton. In this recent investigation we found 1 bird skeleton for every 13 pellets. That’s a rate of twice as many birds eaten by owls in our sample compared to all of the pellets in my studies in the last few years.

Why? I don’t really know, but I do have several hypothesis. I do find that there are at times patterns in how and what the owls are eating. For example in the spring I find that many of the pellets have extremely crushed bones. In those cases, you will not find any whole skulls in the pellets. They will all have been crushed into small pieces. I suspect that these pellets come from young owls. The parents may crush the mice up with their beaks to make it easier for the young to eat. Or maybe the young, being smaller in size or not being very experienced eaters end up crushing the prey as they eat it, more so than older adult owls would. This may be showing us an eating behavior demonstrated by owls. Maybe there are patterns that help to explain what they eat.

One pattern that I have noticed is that if you do get some of the secondary prey (i.e. shrews, moles or birds) you will likely get several pellets in a batch with that kind of prey. Why? Well, there might be a couple of reasons for this. One is that individual owls, just like any other animal (including us), can sometimes have certain foods that they particularly like (for you or me, we might like to eat one particular thing, for example lima beans). If we ended up with pellets from an owl that has an unusual food favorite, then we might see a greater number of that kind of prey. Maybe a particular owl is really good at catching an unusual kind of prey. Again, if we got pellets from that owl we'd have a greater number of that unusual prey. When I purchase the pellets I buy them in bulk. It's likely that several of the pellets come from the same owl. In that case we might get a higher number than expected of the secondary prey. That might be the reason for why we found twice the usual rate for bird predation with our owl pellets - we happened to get pellets from an owl that was particularly fond of or particularly good at catching birds for food.

Another reason is that the unusual prey may be more abundant or more easily caught at certain times of the year, for example there may be more shrew nests in the spring providing for more chances for owls to find them. Often you will find four or five shrews skulls in one pellet, in that case I’m quite sure that the owl heard the shrews in the nest, dove down and grabbed that spot in the leaves and in one swoop catch a whole family of shrews for dinner. In the fall young birds begin to disperse from where they hatched and are no longer being cared for by their parents. These young, inexperienced birds might be more easily preyed upon by owls. This might be the reason why we had such a high number of bird prey in our investigation.

As you can see the web of life is very complex. There are many interconnections between predator and prey. Seasonal changes can affect the number and availability of food. The behavior of prey at different times of the year can make them more available for the owls. All of these things can affect what the owls eat. When we dissect their pellets we can get a glimpse of their world.

Here is the data from the pellets we dissected with 4th graders at Circleville Elementary School:

Mrs. Urmston’s class – 10 pellets, 23 mice, 0 shrew, 0 mole, 1 bird
Mrs. Przybocki’s class – 10 pellets, 24 mice, 4 shrews, 0 mole, 0 bird
Mrs. Conklin’s class – 10 pellets, 21 mice, 0 shrew, 0 mole, 0 bird
Mrs. Herb’s class – 10 pellets, 21 mice, 1 shrew, 0 mole, 2 bird
Mrs. Negron’s class – 10 pellets, 30 mice, 0 shrew, 0 mole, 1 bird

Here’s a question. Were the number of shrews eaten by the owls in our study sample typical or average for owls based on what my previous investigations have shown (hint – look at the number of shrews eaten in all of the dissections I have done with students and compare to what we found yesterday)? E-mail me your answer. Good luck.

Sprouting Acorns

2009-10-21T13:32:00.000-07:00

As I’ve visited schools with my ecologist-in-residence program I’ve noticed some very good acorn crops, what ecologists would call mast. Some naturalists that I have talked with have noted that where they are there are fewer acorns. There seems to be a cycle of good acorn producing years then there are years with little acorn production. It would be interesting to note each year how the acorns are in your woods. If you keep a record of what you find you might note this cyclical change in acorn amounts.

At the Bell Top School in the East Greenbush Central School District there is a tremendous acorn crop this year. I’ve noticed that some of these acorns are already sprouting. These acorns come from the chestnut oaks.

These acorns gave me a chance to explore how seeds grow into trees with the students at Bell Top. I like to explain to them that a seed is really two things – a baby plant (in the case of the acorn, a baby oak tree) and the baby’s lunch box loaded with food packed away by the parent plant (in this case, the parent oak tree). I gathered up some of these sprouting acorns to investigate.

Many of the acorns, like this one, had yet to sprout.

Now and then, as we see here, we’d find one that had a small root beginning to break through the shell of the acorn. The first thing to grow on the young tree is this root. It's called a tap root.

Finding these sprouting acorns made for an excellent use of Billy B’s rhyme from Billy B Sings About Trees (see links to the right) –

The roots grow deep
Deep into the ground
Search for water
Drink it when it’s found

If you carefully cut open the acorn you can see the baby tree, what scientist would call the embryonic tree or growth. Look carefully here at tip of the pointer and you’ll see the embryonic tree, which is slightly discolored and tear shaped. All the rest of the acorn, the white material that fills up the bulk of the acorn is the food that the growing embryonic tree will need. This food was made in the green leaves of the parent tree – remember “Green Leaves Make Food!”

The root will use the food in the nut which is stored in what is called the cotyledons. There are two cotyledons in a oak seed. That’s why oak would be grouped with the dicots, plants with two cotyledons. As the oak seedling grows the cotyledons would form the beginnings of a shoot that would grow from the top of the root. As the cotyledons emerge they grow upward and take on a green color as they begin to produce chlorophyll. And not too soon, for as the food stored in the seed is about all used up the green portions of the shoot will start to produce food for the growing seedling. See my blog for pictures of a maple seedling showing this growth (click on May 2009 in the archives and go to May 24, 2009).

Skunk Scat at Bell Top

2009-10-11T12:55:00.000-07:00

At Bell Top School with Mrs. O'Connell and her 3rd graders we discovered some scat on a culvert pipe cover. After doing some research using two books in particular (Mammal Tracks & Sign: A Guide to North American Species by Mark Elbroch and Tracking and the Art of Seeing: How to Read Animal Tracks and Sign by Paul Rezendes) my best guess is that it was from a skunk.

The photos in both books did not look exactly like the scat we found, pictured here. Nor did they look like the pictures of opossum scat. They were too small to be raccoon scat. In reading about the scat I found that skunk scat can be quite variable.

What has me thinking that the scat is likely skunk is that near by there are several places where there are holes dug in the ground by skunks. Skunks dig into the soil to feed on beetle grubs and other invertebrates that live there including yellow jackets. A good friend of mine, Rick Glatz, told me of a time he was doing a nature walk with students and they observed a skunk digging up a yellow jacket nest. The yellow jackets were swarming all around the skunk, yet the skunk continued to devour the nest oblivious to the insects trying to sting it.. Here is a picture of one of these holes from the Bell Top school yard where it was likely eating beetle grubs.

Here’s a song I learned years ago about a skunk.

The Skunk Song (sung to the tune of “Dixie”)

I stuck my head in a little skunk’s hole
The little skunk said “Oh bless my soul”
Take it out
Take it out
Take it out
Remove it!

Well I didn’t take it out and that little skunk said
If you don’t take it out you’ll wish you had
Take it out
Take it out
Take it out – psssssssssst
I removed it.

In the song the skunk give three warnings – “Take it out, take it out, take it out”. In reading old accounts of skunks like those by Ernest Thompson Seton they tell of skunks giving three warnings when threatened by danger; the first, stomping their front feet on the ground; the second, making a hissing noise and showing their teeth; and finally, raising their tail. All of these are warning signs to ward off a predator. If successful, the predator leaves the skunk alone and the skunk doesn’t have to use any spray, thus conserving spray for when it really is needed.

I’ve always wondered if this was really true. I had a chance to check it out one day when I encountered a skunk at the Rogers Environmental Education Center in Sherburne, NY. It was a late winter day with mild weather and snow still on the ground. At that time of year skunks are starting to become more active moving about searching for food and getting ready for the mating season.

I was walking one of the Center’s trails when I saw a skunk near a corn crib wildlife feeding area. I was about 50 feet from it, a safe distance if the skunk were to spray. I decided to see if the skunk would give the three warnings. I made a snow ball and carefully tossed it toward the skunk. I missed by about 15 feet. The skunk gave no reaction and continued to slowly waddle along. To improve my accuracy I decided I had to get a little closer, made another snowball and tossed it. Again I missed (I wasn’t trying to hit the skunk, just trying to land the snowball near it), but by only 7 or 8 feet. The skunk just waddled along. So I got even close, less than 20 feet from the skunk, within spray range if it decided to let loose.

I tossed another snowball and almost hit the skunk on the head. It didn’t stomp the ground with it front feet. It didn’t hiss or bare its teeth. It stopped waddling and immediately raised its distinctively marked black and white tail. I thought, “Ooops!” and stood still. The skunk didn’t spray. After a few moments it began to slowly waddle along and then slowly lowered its tail. I slowly backed away.

I didn’t see any feet stomping, hissing or baring of teeth. I definitely saw the tail rise. The skunk had given me a warning. It worked! I left the skunk alone and it continued on with its business not having had to use any spray.

In hind sight it would have been interesting to have been sprayed. Then I could relate the experience of how the spray works – by causing eyes to water, irritation of the nose (I have had that experience when a skunk sprayed in the wood shed attached to our old farmhouse – the smell seeping into the house was so strong that it awoke me from my sleep with a burning sensation in my nose and watering eyes) and even vomiting.

One last note – notice the seeds in the scat. The large ones are cherry pits. The skunk, by feeding on cherry and other fruit, is helping to disperse those seeds. The fleshy part of the fruit is digested while the seed continues through the skunk’s digestive system. When the skunk goes to the bathroom they are planting trees and bushes far from the parent plant. Alas where this skunk went to the bathroom is a bad place for the seeds to have ended up in that they will not be able to grow on the metal plate.

Caterpillar at Sapphire Elementary

2009-10-03T16:51:00.000-07:00

I’ve just finished up my fall visit at the Sapphire Elementary School in Monroe, NY. Kindergarten and 1st graders had the chance to be ecologists with me exploring the schoolyard ecosystem. Our trips into the lawn and forest edge revealed many different plants and animals. We found the typical herbaceous plants of the schoolyard lawn – red and white clovers, dandelion, crab grass along with a number of other grass species, yarrow, common and English plantain and trees – red, sugar and Norway maples, Norway spruce and white ash.

Several classes had the opportunity to see a variety of different birds. Blue jays and turkey vultures were seen by almost all the classes. One class had the opportunity to observe about a dozen Eastern bluebirds flit about a schoolyard fence and nearby power line. At one point we saw a male fly up from the ground and land on the wire with a caterpillar or worm in its mouth. Another group witnessed three broad-winged hawks and two osprey fly by on migration. Missing from the usual creatures observed on these autumn field trips was the monarch butterfly. In past years several dozen monarchs would be observed on our walks. This year we only saw two. We wondered what might have caused this decline in monarchs, something that has been observed and talked about by other naturalists and environmental educators throughout the state.

Late summer and fall is a great time to observe caterpillars. They have spent the summer months growing up and their larger size makes them easily visible as they prepare to overwinter. The wooly bear is probably the most familiar of the fall caterpillars but there are many other candidates to discover. We encountered one such caterpillar, one that I had never seen before. I had to tell the students that I didn’t know what it was and that I would have to do some research to figure it out.

Using “Caterpillars of Eastern North America” I was able to figure out that the caterpillar, shown here, was a Ruby Tiger Moth. It’s scientific name is Pragmatobia fuliginosa, a relative of the Wooly Bear (Isia isabella) in the moth family called Arctiidae. The caterpillar eats a lot of different plants including goldenrod, plantain, sunflowers and ash - there are ash trees and plantain in the Sapphire Elementary schoolyard.

The caterpillar will hibernate for the winter and form a cocoon in the spring. The adult moth will come out of the cocoon after it has undergone metamorphosis. It's body will be a dark reddish brown with a row of black spots along the back of its abdomen. The front wings will be a dull reddish brown with one small black spot on each wing. The hind wings will be a pale pink, also with one small dark spot on each wing.

Other caterpillars I’ve come across in my travels include the Galium Sphinx (Hyles gallii) and Trumpet Vine Sphinx (Paratraea plebeja).

Here are two caterpillars that I found recently (this past late summer and fall) in my travels but have not been able to figure out what species they are. Do you know what they are?

Keep your eyes open for caterpillars in the schoolyard. The big brightly colored ones provide a great hands-on teaching opportunity about the diversity of life in the schoolyard, life cycles, food chains, animal behavior, and adaptations.

Fall Seeds

2009-09-29T13:51:00.000-07:00

My apologies to Mr. Rawitsch and the 1st grade classes at Glenmont Elementary for this late entry in my blog. Thank you, Mr. Rawitsch, for the pictures here. I hope that you and the first grade teachers and students enjoy it even though it is late – better late than never?!?

Autumn is a great time to explore seeds in the outdoor science laboratory that is a school yard. At Glenmont I had the chance to take the 1st grades outside to what they call the Big Backyard (and what I call my outdoor science laboratory) to look for and learn about seeds. An easy task, since in the fall seeds are just about everywhere.

Our exploration started with looking at the different parts of plants. One of the most obvious parts of plants are the leaves. And what do leaves do? “Green Leaves Make Food” was our chanted response to that question. The food made by the leaves is used by the plant to help all the parts of the plant to grow. Some of that food remains in the leaf and is eaten, like this grape (Vitis species) leaf we found that had been eaten by Japanese beetles (Popillia japonica). Do the leaves become the seeds? No.

We then looked at the roots of plants, in this case, crab grass (Digitaria genus). What do roots do? Well we borrowed a rhyme from Billy B (see the Billy "B" link) to help us remember – “The roots grow deep, deep into the ground, search for water, drink it when it’s found”. Do the roots become seeds? No.

Neither do the stems or branches. So what does turn into the seeds? Flower turn into seeds. That became our chant – “Flowers turn into seeds!” How do flowers turn into seeds? Well they need to be pollinated. Many flowers are pollinated by insects and other small animals. The flower colors and smell attract these creatures. It’s as if the flowers were saying, “Eat here. Eat here. Eat here.” When the insects visit for a meal of nectar and pollen they spread some of the pollen to parts of the flower that will grow into seeds. We call this pollination. We found some flower buds for bittersweet nightshade (Solanum dulcamara). Right on the same vine we found nightshade fruit. Fruits are a seed container.

Looking at the nightshade leaves, flower and fruit we could see that it looked a bit like tomatoes. That’s because nightshade is related to tomatoes and potatoes. They all belong in a group that scientist call a family. The name of this family is Solanaceae. Although they belong in the same family as tomatoes and potatoes, nightshade fruit are poisonous to people. Since nightshade is similar to tomatoes we wondered if they would have as many seeds as a tomato does. We found out by squishing open a nightshade fruit. The fruits we opened had about 20 to 30 seeds in them – lots of seeds in a fruit just like tomatoes.

Brightly colored fruits like the nightshade and grape attract animals. Their colors say to the animals “Eat me!” Here we see a grape that we’ve squished open. Inside the grape we found several seeds. While the juices and fleshy parts of the fruit are digested in the animal’s stomach the seeds would continue to travel through the animal’s digestive system. It would eventually be deposited somewhere when the animal goes to the bathroom. If the seeds end up where there is plenty of soil, water and sunlight it might grow into a plant far from the parent plant. The plant has helped out the animal by providing food. The animal helps the plant out by spreading plant seeds about the environment.

Here is a cherry (Prunus species) seed that was deposited on a wooden fence in the school yard. It probably got there by traveling in a bird’s digestive system. Not all seeds travel inside animals. What other ways might a seed be dispersed?

So much to learn about seeds, right outside the school doors, in the science laboratory that is the schoolyard!

Organisms That We've Observed

2009-08-12T20:25:00.001-07:00

Our RSSE adventures have led us to a variety of encounters with different organisms. One of these is the Cicada exoskeletons that many of the Young Naturalists have been finding. These are the Dog Day Cicadas that you hear buzzing in the trees during the day. These insects are about a year old and have spent most of their lives underground. They hatched last August or September from eggs that were laid in the tips of tree branches. After hatching they dropped out of the tree and tunneled into the soil where they lived, surviving on plant juices that they sucked out of roots until coming out from their underground home in the last few weeks. When they crawled out of the ground they climbed up tree trunks, fence posts and other objects where they shed their exoskeleton and emerged with wings. They have flown up into the trees where they buzz to attract mates.

On the early morning bird walk we saw or heard 7 species of birds including House Sparrow, American Crow, Starling, Catbird, Rock Pigeon, American Goldfinch and Northern Cardinal. But the most exciting find was a young Woodchuck. Many people know the Woodchuck as a Ground Hog, but it has many other names including Whistle Pig and Marmot. Some one even mentioned that there is a Pennsylvania Dutch name for them but they couldn’t remember what it was. Since animals like the Woodchuck often do have so many common names, scientist will use the scientific name to be sure that other scientist are clear about what animal they are talking about. The scientific name for the Woodchuck is Marmota monax.

Another cool organism that we’ve encountered is the Bird Nest Fungus. It is growing in several places under the trees along the sidewalk in front of the Williams Center. As you can see from the photos I took the fungus’ fruiting body is smaller than a penny. The majority of the fungus though is the fungal mycelia that grows under the wood chips and eats up the food energy stored in the dead wood. Look carefully inside the fungal cup and you’ll see some little lumps that make the whole body look like a miniature bird nest complete with tiny eggs – hence the name Bird Nest Fungus. When rain water splashes into the cup fungal spore are propelled out to spread about and grow into new fungi.

But the most exciting organism discovered in our ramblings so far, I think, has been the Box Turtle, Terrapene Carolina. Thanks to Sarah Ye for the wonderful pictures of the turtle posted here.

Bird House

2009-08-12T19:42:00.000-07:00

Whew! What a day – from bald eagles to insects. The bird nest box work was super! I wish I had a chance to check out the owl pellet analysis and fish printing.

The nest boxes we built are designed for the Eastern Bluebird. The size of the hole keeps birds like House Sparrows and Starlings from using the box. Both of these birds are invasive alien species (they both were released in America by people interested in having animals mentioned in Shakespeare live among us – they are originally from Europe) that out competed Bluebirds for tree holes – their natural nesting place. As far as the Bluebird is concerned the bird house is just a hole in a tree!

To attract Bluebirds the box should be placed in an open field area that is mowed now and then – lawns are fine. Very tall grass can affect the birds’ ability to find ground living insects, especially caterpillars. Placing the nest box too close to the edge of woods or brushy areas invites the House Wren to use the nest box to the detriment of the Bluebird. The House Wren might even bury the Bluebird nestlings or eggs under a pile of sticks as they fill up the box to prevent any other Wrens from using it and encroaching on their own territory.

There are several other birds that might use the nest box. In addition to the House Wren, the Black-capped Chickadee, Tufted Titmouse, Nuthatch and Tree Swallow might use the bird house. In fact many people set up nest boxes in pairs with one about 20 feet apart from the other. If a Tree Swallow occupies one of the boxes, it will not allow another Tree Swallow family to move into the second box, thus leaving it open for Bluebirds. They don’t care if Bluebirds move in and raise a family.

The nest boxes we built are designed to have a front door that can swing up to allow access to the inside of the box. Most of the boxes were constructed so that the doors had a snug fit. If the door is loose enough to open without much force you might add a latching mechanism to the box. The easiest way to do this is to drill a hole through one of the side walls so that the hole also drills into the front door. Place a nail that fits snuggly into the hole (without the need for pounding it with a hammer) so that it penetrates all the way into the door. The box should be opened for periodical checks to be sure that wasps do not start nesting in the box – this can be disturbing to the nesting birds. If you find a wasp nest carefully scrape it out of the box. Don’t use insect sprays on the wasps. The spray chemicals will not be good for the birds using the box. You don’t have to worry about your human smell causing trouble for the birds. Most birds can’t smell very well, so what ever smell you’ve left behind they can’t smell it. More importantly their instinct to care for their young is so strong that even if they know that you have been there, once you go they will return to take care of their babies.

The other reason to open the nest box is to clean out the old nest so that returning birds will have any empty “hole” to use. The box should be cleaned out in late winter. When cleaning out the nest box you might find that it has served as the home for mice like the White-footed Mouse or Deer Mouse, or a Flying Squirrel.

Good luck with your nest box. I hope that you get a bird family to move in.

The First Day for the 2009 RSSE at Lafayette College

2009-08-10T20:33:00.000-07:00

What a day! What a wonderful bunch of young naturalists – so full of excitement, enthusiasm and sense of wonder. Terrific parents, too, and fantastic adult and youth volunteer helpers!

My highlight for the day was the box turtle we found at Monacacy Park. Best part was that it was spotted by some of the young naturalist. One of the parents captured it for me and I had a great chance to talk about a somewhat rare turtle, not endangered, but one who’s numbers have declined. It was male about 25 to 30 years old – you can tell their age by counting the rings on the scutes, or scales on the shell on their back.

It was great to see all the bats, especially with me coming from New York State were there has been quite a problem with loss of bats to the white nose syndrome. The bat sound translator worked very well and we all got a chance to hear the ultrasonic bat sounds, both their navigating sounds and their hunting/targeting sounds. It was also exciting to have the bats eventually start flying right over our heads, seeking out insects that were probably attracted to all of us humans.

I was quite intrigued by the fact that there were still fireflies (you can also call them lightning bugs, but remember they are neither flies nor bugs, but actually beetles) flying and flashing about this late in the summer. I usually expect to see them in June and perhaps early July. I wonder if the cool rainy weather we’ve had this summer has anything to do with that. I also wonder if the cool rainy summer has anything to do with the lack of jewel weed seed pods – there definitely were very few seeds pods to pick and show their exploding characteristic – jewel weed, also called touch-me-nots (a name given for that exploding attribute) have seed pods that pop when disturbed thus casting their seeds about helping the young plants to spread out.

I also enjoyed the Pond Ecology session. It’s always exciting to find what creatures are in the pond environment. It is always changing as populations of organisms rise and fall; generations grow up, leave the pond, then later return to lay eggs and start the cycle all over again. Check out my blog in the archive for November 2008 for some photos and more information on Aquatic Macro-invertebrates. I’m wondering if any young naturalist will take up my challenge to video the aquatic worm doing it wiggle swim and set the video to some techno/electronic beat.

I’m hoping many of the young naturalists will be able to use the mammal skull key that we learned about to identify mammal skulls that they may find in the future. I’m looking forward to talking more about mammal bones and getting the chance for the scientists to investigate my collection of bones, perhaps sketching them and identifying what bones they are by comparing them to our own human bones. – ah, a little comparative anatomy.

You might be wondering about what some of these organisms look like – jewel weed, box turtle, aquatic macro invertebrates – check out my blog for October 2nd, 2006 for a run down on my favorite guide books and natural history resources.

Camp Gross Staff Training

2009-07-02T06:38:00.000-07:00

Camp Gross Camp Staff Training Session
July 1, 2009

Four guiding principles for being a camp counselor (and for working with children in all different situations)

Children like to Move and Make Noise – When I first heard Bill Brennan (see Billy “B”) say this in a workshop on song writing, singing and movement for working with children it struck a chord in me. It articulated what I knew from my years of experience in working with children. Children like to move and make noise. As a camp counselor or youth leader my job isn’t to stop children from moving and making noise, it’s to help them move and make noise in the direction needed. As a youth leader am I prepared to do this?

Children Do Not Have A Short Attention Span – Think back to the sage advise given to us by someone (your mom, a teacher, a camp program director) when we first started working with children, “Remember, kids have a short attention span.” Well, this advice is was WRONG (actually not wrong just misdirected). Years ago when I heard a presentation by Michael Brandwein speaking on the attention span of children, he spoke about youth leaders needing to have good attention grabbers. Again, this is something that I had known all along from experience. Saying children have a short attention span doesn’t help me do my job as a youth leader. It lays the problem on the children, when the problem is really what do I have that will help me capture the attention of the children I am working with. Children have an attention span, sometimes short other times long. I need tips, tricks, techniques that will help me keep that child’s attention on the situation at hand instead of on something else.

Just Do It – I wish I had trademarked this phrase when I first started using it while advising and training camp counselors, youth leaders and teachers years before it was made popular by a Nike ad campaign. Too many times we spend too much time talking to children, instead of letting them “Just Do It”. Children don’t need to know everything before they start on something. They learn by doing. As a camp counselor, more doing is much better than more talking.

Everything I Do Teaches – This is a personal philosophy that goes much beyond just being a camp counselor. In today’s world everyone points to all the negative influences – TV, celebrities, the media, politicians, investment bankers – that affect the development of children. Well, where are the positive influences going to come from, from you and me. Hillary Rodham Clinton made this African folk phrase “It takes a village” popular a few years back. What makes up that village? Individuals do. Everything you do teaches those around you. As a camp counselor this is the most important thing to remember, you may say one thing but if you do another your actions will teach much better than your words.

With these four principles in mind what tips, tricks, and techniques will I have at the ready as a youth leader to help me in my work with children. Here is a list of games, activities, challenges, puzzles and presentations that I shared with the Camp Gross staff.

What is it Bag (also known as a Grock Bag)
Rope Circle
Circle Pass Games
Magic Sticks
Suns and Planets
Finger on the Nose Trick
Move That Finger
Sharp Eyes
ESP
Nail Balance Challenge
Fork Balance Challenge
Pick Up the Straws Challenge
Crook of the Elbow
Maze

These activities come from a wide range of resources and experiences. I’ll blog about these later.

If you want to know details of how to do any of the activities e-mail me.

Last Owl Study of the School Year

2009-06-15T15:16:00.000-07:00

Sorry, Lincoln Elementary in Schenectady. I've been meaning to get your data up on my blog but I haven't kept up with it. Here it is a week late.

Mrs. Coman's class - 7 pellets: 17 mice, 3 shrews, 0 moles, 0 birds
Ms. Cuda's class - 8 pellets: 19 mice, 1 shrew, 0 moles, 0 birds
Ms. Miller's class - 7 pellets: 18 mice, 7 shrews, 0 moles, 0 birds
Mrs. Zebrowski's class - 6 pellets: 14 mice, 3 shrews, 0 moles, 0 birds

Totals for all four classes - 28 pellets: 68 mice, 14 shrews, 0 moles, 0 birds

Mice are definitely the most common food eaten by barn owls, with shrews the second most common. We don't have enough evidence to indicate which are more preferred, moles or birds.

Compare this data with the other owl pellets dissection that I've done with school written up here on this blog.

Birding at King Elementary

2009-05-29T21:35:00.000-07:00

I just finished my ecologist-in-residence program at the King Elementary School in Warwick. The 5th grade classes joined me as ornithologists to do a survey of birds at the school. In two days I took 5 classes out to find birds in the woods, wetland and fields that surround the school. The 5 classes were: Mrs. Curtain (May 28, 10:30-11:30), Mrs. Kunath (May 29, 10:00-11:00), Mrs. Shook (May 29, 11:15-12:15), Mrs. Boccia (May 29, 1:00-2:00) and Ms. Davis (May 29, 2:30-3:30). We identified a total of 41 species between the five classes and two days. I’m listing the birds identified, with which classes saw or heard them noted by the teacher’s initial.

Canada Goose K
Mallard B
Great Blue Heron K, S
Black Vulture C, S, D
Turkey Vulture C, K, S, B, D
Red-tailed Hawk S, D
Killdeer K
Mourning Dove K
Chimney Swift C, K, S
Red-bellied Woodpecker C, K
Downy Woodpecker S
Hairy Woodpecker S
Northern Flicker B, D
Eastern Phoebe I saw when not with students
Great Crested Flycatcher S
Eastern Kingbird C, K, S, B, D
Blue Jay K, D
American Crow C, K, S, B, D
Tree Swallow S, D
Tufted Titmouse C
White-breasted Nuthatch I saw when not with students
House Wren C, S, B, D
Eastern Bluebird C, B, D
American Robin C, S, B, D
Gray Catbird K, S, D
Northern Mockingbird C, K, S, B, D
Brown Thrasher S
European Starling C, K, S, B, D
Cedar Waxwing C, K, S, B
Yellow Warbler C, K, S, D
Chipping Sparrow C, K, S, D
Song Sparrow K, S, D
Northern Cardinal K, S, B, D
Rose-breasted Grosbeak C, K
Red-winged Blackbird C, K, S, B, D
Common Grackle C, K, S, B, D
Brown-headed Cowbird K, S
Baltimore Oriole C, S, B
Purple Finch S
American Goldfinch K
House Sparrow C, K, B, D

Not a bad day for birds. The habitat at King is great. It’s interesting that we did not get black-capped chickadee or common yellowthroat. A few other birds that are probably at King are wild turkey, sharp-shinned hawk, kestrel, rock pigeon, ruby-throated hummingbird, barn swallow, field sparrow and eastern meadowlark.

More Owl Pellet Data

2009-05-28T19:13:00.000-07:00

In early May I was at the Leptondale Elementary School in the Wallkill Central School District where 4th grade classes took apart owl pellets. Here is the data from those classes.

Mrs. Dannemann's class - 9 pellets, 20 mice, 1 shrew, 0 moles, 0 birds
Mrs. Psilopoulos class - 12 pellets, 22 mice, 2 shrews, 1 mole, 0 birds
Mrs. Davis/Mrs. Gundersen's class - 11 pellets, 11 mice, 2 shrew, 0 moles, 0 birds
Mr. Zupan's class - 10 pellets, 29 mice, 0 shrews, 0 moles, 0 birds
For a total of - 42 pellets, 82 mice, 5 shrews, 1 mole, 0 birds

Later in May at the Altamont Elementary School in the Guilderland Central School District I worked with two fourth grade classes. Here the results from there.

Mrs. Vogel's class - 10 pellets, 21 mice, 5 shrew, 0 moles, 1 bird
Mrs. Sanger's class - 12 pellets, 30 mice, 1 shrew, 1 mole, 1 bird
For a total of - 22 pellets, 51 mice, 6 shrew, 1 mole, 2 birds

You can add up the results of the two classes with the other owl data that I've posted here.

I have one more owl ecology session to do this school year at the Lincoln Elementary School is Schenectady. After doing that class I'll write an entry reviewing the overall results for this year.

Leaf Litter Critters

2009-05-27T18:51:00.001-07:00

My apologies to the 3rd grade students and teachers at Harmony Hill Elementary in Cohoes for the length of time it has taken me to make this entry. My recent visit to King Elementary in Warwick with 2nd grades got me moving to complete this.

Leaf litter offers a great chance to investigate terrestrial invertebrates. Any wooded area will do for a hands-on exploration. The dead leaves and branches found along the forest floor provide food and shelter for many creatures including centipedes, millipedes, isopods, insects, worms, snails and slugs. All you need is an old white sheet, some large plastic storage tubs, some white plastic food tubs (for example margarine or cream cheese containers), white plastic spoons and small paint brushes.

Collect a bunch of leaf litter in the plastic tubs and dump it on the white sheet. Using plastic spoons or small paint brushes look through the leaf litter and capture the creepy crawly creatures.

Here are some of the creatures that we captured.

Sow bugs are isopods that feed on dead plant material. They might be one of the most numerous of the leaf litter invertebrates. This one is a relative of the rolly polly that is seen in the video below. This isopod can not roll up to protect itself.

Millipedes are plant eating arthropods. The word millipede means thousand legs. Actually a millipede is an arthropod with four legs for each body segment. It looks like this millipede has about 50 segments. How many legs would it have?

Since millipedes are plant eaters they do not have to be as fast a mover as centipedes. Be sure to see how fast the centipede moves in the video below.

The harvest man are not true spiders, although they are closely related. Harvest men are hunters eating other small invertebrates. They kill their prey with a venomous bite. Many people think that harves men have the most poisonous venom of all spiders. This is not true.

Most people think of snails as water creatures. There are many aquatic snails, but there are also terestrial, or land, snails.

Here are two species. Note how they have different shell patterns.

Snails can not come out of their shell. When you find an empty shell, it is the remains of a snail that has died.

Snails eat plants.

Here is a crab spider. They are called crab spiders because the two front pairs of legs are larger than the back four legs. This gives the spider the appearance of have crab-like claws. Like all spiders, crab spiders are hunters, eating other small invertebrates.

Beetles are the most numerous of all insects. This beetle is one of the species of ground beetles. I need to do some research to find the family that this belongs to. When I have I will post it here.

Here are some videos of some of these leaf litter inhabitants.

From Helicopter to Seedling

2009-05-24T18:02:00.000-07:00

Most every schoolyard has a place where wind blown seeds accumulate – maybe in a corner of the schoolyard, along a fence or near a flower bed. On my recent visit to Harmony Hill Elementary School in Cohoes, NY we found just such a place with Mrs. Slater’s and Mrs. Brooks 1st grade classes. It was along a flower bed surrounding some trees in front of the school. Norway maple seeds had blown in and were germinating.

We discovered these seedlings as we were doing a schoolyard ecology field trip. In this one spot we found maple seeds – most of the students know these as “helicopter” seeds – in various states, from unsuccessful seeds to seeds that had started to germinate to seedlings that had grown to about 2 inches tall. Not only could we find the seeds and seedlings on the ground, when we looked up into the trees we could see newly forming seeds. It was easy to observe that each tree had hundreds of seeds. We explored how the seeds, when ripe, would be blown about by the wind. Many seeds might end up in bad places like the school roof, the sidewalk or the parking lot where they would not successfully grow. Other seeds might end up in what starts off as a good spot – the lawn, or in the case of our exploration, the flowerbed – where the seed can germinate and start to grow but never become a tree because it would be mowed or weeded out by school caretakers. Still other seeds might end up in a good spot, say in the bushes at the edge of the lawn, only to be eaten by a mouse or a chipmunk, or to sprout into a seedling and be eaten by a rabbit or a deer.

All those seeds – goners! No wonder when we observed the seeds on the maple trees we saw hundreds, probably thousands of seeds. Successful plants, like the Norway maple, produce many seeds each year. Thousands of those seeds never make it, but some will. These will grow into trees that will keep the species going. As a matter of fact, trees like the Norway maple are an invasive species. They are not native to North America. They were planted by people because they do better in urban environments. They are more tolerant of urban pollution so they grow well as a street tree. Over time, their seeds spread about and it does better than other native trees, ending up crowding out the native species. Check any urban park and you will see that the predominant tree growing in the forested areas is likely to be the Norway maple.

Check you schoolyard. There are lots of plants to investigate outside. There’s lots of opportunity to see live, in action, what students are reading about and studying in the classroom.

Can you count the number of seeds here? This is just one of dozens, perhaps hundreds of branches on this one Norway maple, each with just as many seeds. Why so many seeds? When these seeds ripen they will turn brown and fall of the tree.

The wind will scatter them far and wide. One of these seed will end up in a flower bed. It's seems like a great place for the seed to grow. There is plenty of sun, soil and water. Let's see what happens to that seed. We can see that the seed has started to germinate.

The first part of the seedling to grow is the tap root. Here we see that it has sprung from the seed which is still attached to the helicopter wing, called a samara. At this point there are no green leaves or green parts of the plant to produce food so the seedling is using food made by the parent tree that was stored in the cotyledons of the seed. That's why I say the seed is made up of two things, the baby plant and the baby plant's lunch box. First the tap root secures the seedling to the ground and then, to borrow a rhyme from Billy "B" (see Billy "B" link), "the root grows deep, deep into the ground, searches for water and drinks it when it's found"!

As the tap root grows it will send out many root branches, just like the main trunk sending out many branches above ground. Here we can see some of these rootlets. At the end of these rootlets there will be very small root hairs that suck up water and nutrients from the ground that will be used for the seedlings growth.

Here is a seedling that has sprouted and is still connected to the "helicopter" wing. It now has a shoot of growth on the tap root with green leaves. The green leaves are now producing food - "green leaves make food" - that will be used by the seedling to grow.

The end result is this Norway maple seedling growing in a flower bed at the Harmony Hill Elementary School in Cohoes, NY. This may seem like a good spot to grow but not really. The seedling will most likely not become a mature maple tree because it will be removed as an undesireable plant in the flower bed. So what may have looked like a good place to grow ends up a bad place. Many of the seeds from the parent maple will end up in bad places like this, but since the parent tree produces so many seeds some will end up in good places and grow to become mature trees and keep the maple life cycle going.

You can see this story happening in any school or back yard. The life cycle of a tree for all to see and explore.

Soil

2009-05-20T06:06:00.000-07:00

My school program schedule is as busy as ever. It’s been hard to keep up with this blog. I do have two posts in the works from my visit to the Harmony Hill Elementary School in Cohoes, NY. One of my difficulties is having to connect to the internet at home with dial-up, which really slows the process when I’m trying to upload video.

Well I’ve just got home from the Adirondacks after doing a Nature Tunes and Tales Campfire program for the Homer Junior High School’s Science Club. What a great bunch kids! The campfire program was a culmination for their four day exploration of the Adirondacks. I think they had a good time and learned some things from my presentation. I know I had a great time.

In doing my usual routine I introduced the students to one of the American Sign Language words for soil. This is done by holding both hands, palm towards ones self, with all fingers pointing upward, then rubbing the finger tips together. As is the case many times when I teach students this sign someone makes the comment “That’s the sign for money!”

When this happens I often go off on a tangential routine about how money wouldn’t exist without soil. Unfortunately I was pressed for time and couldn’t do it with my presentation, so I told the students I would post it on my blog. Here it is.

Yes, it is a “slang” hand symbol for money that many people know. If you stop to think about it, though, without soil we wouldn’t have money. You see money is a way that we have arranged to acquire things. You make money, you buy something from someone. They now have money so they can buy something else from someone else.

Take me for example. I’m wearing this cotton t-shirt that I bought because it had this cool message on it, “In wildness is the preservation of the world.” Someone silk screened the message on it and I paid them money for the shirt. They gave the money to a t-shirt manufacturer for shirts to silk screen. The t-shirt manufacturer bought cotton cloth from a cotton mill with the money so they could make the shirts. The cotton mill uses the money to buy raw cotton from the cotton farmers so they can weave it into cotton fabric. The cotton farmers buy cotton seed and farming equipment with the money so they can plant the cotton in soil to grow the cotton plants. No soil, no cotton. No cotton, no cotton cloth. No cotton cloth, no t-shirt. For that matter no cotton pants, socks or underwear! Oh, oh!

How about my belt? I bought it from a craftsman that makes leather belts. He bought the leather to make the belt from a tannery. The tannery buys the raw animal skins to make into leather from a meat processing factory. The factory bought the animals from a farmer. The farmer used the money to feed the animals food crops that were grown in the soil. No soil, no food crops. No food crops, no animals. No animals, no animal skins. No animal skins, no leather. No leather, no belt. My pants would be falling down. But wait, aren't my pants made from cotton?!?

How about the rubber that’s a part of the front of my shoes? I bought the shoes from a store. The store bought the shoe from a shoe factory. The shoe factory bought rubber to make into parts of the shoe from a rubber factory. The rubber factory buys the raw rubber from a rubber plantation. The rubber plantation grows rubber trees that have roots growing in the soil. No soil, no rubber trees. No rubber trees, no rubber sap. No rubber sap, no rubber. No rubber, my toes would be sticking out of the front of these shoes!

Even the cash itself – 1, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100 dollar bills, made from paper, made from trees that have roots growing in the soil. No soil, no trees, no paper money.

Ah, but you say you used a credit card to buy this stuff. The credit card is made from plastic, that is made from fossil fuels, that were once plants growing millions of years ago. Plants with roots growing in the soil!

Yes. The ASL sign for soil is like the slang sign for money. But without soil we really wouldn’t have money or the flow of commerce that we use the money for.

Central Valley Entomology

2009-04-28T19:56:00.001-07:00

During my visit with the 2nd grade entomologists at Central Valley Elementary School I had the chance to explain how scientist identify the more common orders of insects. I used an insect identification sheet developed by Anita Sanchez to organize our discussion. Unfortunately there was not enough time to cover all seven of the orders of insects that were shown. Here is a review of these common orders of insects, the names entomologists use for them and how these names help us identify them.

Butterflies and Moths – are called Lepidoptera, which means scale wing. If you’ve ever held a moth or butterfly you might have noticed the dusty powder that was left on your fingers. This powder is actually scales from the wings and body of the insect. These scales give color and strength to the wings. Butterflies and moths go through complete metamorphosis, which means they start off as an egg that hatches into a larva. The larva of moths and butterflies are often called caterpillars. The larvae eat and grow. When they are too big for their exoskeleton skin they shed, or molt the skin. Their new skin has room for them to grow. A larva can molt several times before it molts into a pupa. The pupa of a butterfly is called a chrysalis. The pupa of a moth is called a cocoon. Inside the pupa the larva is undergoing a complete change of its body growing all the things it will have as an adult, especially wings. When it emerges from the pupa it will pump up its wings so that they spread and flatten out. When the wings are dry the adult insect flies away to mate and lay eggs.

Bugs – are called Hemiptera, which means half wing. They get this name because the two wings they have are half thick, near the body and half thin further from their body. All bugs are insects but not all insects are bugs. To tell if it is a bug look for a triangle shape on the back of the insect where their thorax meets their abdomen. Bugs undergo what is called incomplete metamorphosis. When a bug hatches from the egg it doesn’t look worm-like, like a caterpillar or maggot. The newly hatched bug looks quite a bit like an insect with three body parts, antenna and six legs. The one thing it will not have is wings. This young bug is called a nymph. The nymph eats and grows. When it is too big for its exoskeleton it molts the skin and emerges a little larger. Upon its last molt it will emerge from the old exoskeleton but now have wings that will spread out, flatten and dry. Once dry the adult bug flies off to look for mates and lay eggs.

Ants, Bees, Wasps and Hornets – are called Hymenoptera, which mean thin skin wing. The hymenoptera have four thin skin, or membranous wings. Many of them, for example ants and honeybees, live in large groups or colonies. In these colonies there is one female that lays the eggs. This is the queen. She will have many daughters, often called workers, that will never lay eggs. In the case of ants these daughters will never have wings. They take care of the queen, feed the larvae and build and protect the nest. At certain times of the year the queen will lay eggs that will grow into adult queens and drones (the males). These adults will have wings. They live in the nest only a few days then fly away to find mates. After they mate the drones will soon die. The queens will start a new nest. The first larvae to hatch will be fed extra eggs that the queen lays for food. After undergoing complete metamorphosis, these first larvae will emerge as worker ants, daughters of the queen, that will now take over building and caring for the nest and all the ants living in it. The queen will spend the rest of her life laying eggs. Some queen ants can live up to 10 years and lay a million eggs in their lifetime.

Flies – are called Diptera, which means two wings. All flies have two wings. Some flies look like bees, yellow bodies with black stripes. Some bees look like flies. The way to tell them apart is to count their wings. Bees have four wings. Flies have two wings. Many insect have fly in their name but are not really flies. Generally speaking if the name is compound, butterfly, dragonfly, mayfly, the insect is not a true fly or dipteran. True flies will have names that are not compound such as house fly, deer fly or black fly. The flies go through complete metamorphosis. The larvae of flies are called maggots.

Dragonfly – are called Odonata, which means toothed. The dragonflies get this name for their predatory behavior, eating many small insects and other animals, both when they are nymphs in the water and adults flying around in the air. One of their favorite foods is mosquitoes. I have watched dragonflies at my pond chase and catch deer flies in mid-air. Dragonflies are not true flies. They undergo incomplete metamorphosis.

Beetles – are called Coleoptera, which means shield wing. The beetles have four wings, two for flying and two that serve as shields that protect the flying wings. When a beetle takes off it lifts open it’s shield wings, unfolds it’s flying wings and flies off. When the beetle lands it folds up it’s flying wings and then closes down it’s shield wings. When the shield wings are closed they meet in a long line down the back of the beetle’s abdomen. The best beetle to see this happen is the lady bug (notice that the lady bug is actually a beetle called the lady bird beetle – it does not have a triangle shape on it’s back like the true bugs, the hemiptera). Beetles go through complete metamorphosis. Beetle larvae are called grubs.

Grasshoppers and Crickets – are called Orthopter, which means straight wing. They get this name because adult grasshoppers have wings that are folded like a hand fan and thus appearing to be straight. Grasshoppers undergo incomplete metamorphosis, hatching out of the eggs as nymphs that look like little tiny grasshoppers. We caught one of these nymphs in our entomology expedition outside.

These seven are among the more common orders of insects. There are about 28 orders of insects. I say about because scientist do not all agree on some of the orders of insects. Some scientist want to combine some orders, while other scientists think it is best to keep them separate. Some of the other orders of more familiar insects include mayflies (Ephemeroptera), fleas (Siphonaptera), cicadas (Homoptera) and earwigs (Dermaptera).

Spiders are not insects. They have eight legs and two body parts (a cephalothorax – which means head-thorax and an abdomen). Entomologists study spiders for several reasons. One reason is that they are relatives of insects. Spiders and insects are arthropods. Other arthropods include centipedes, millipedes and crustaceans (crabs, lobsters, crayfish and shrimp). All arthropods have exoskeletons that are shed or molted when the animals outgrow them. Another reason entomologists study spiders is that where ever you capture insects you will also capture spiders. That is because spiders prey upon insects (although there are some insects that turn the dinner table around and eat spiders).

Insects are the most numerous of all animals. They live all around us, even in our houses. That means there are many insects that can be studied without have to travel far. You can study ants on the playground, beetles in an old rotting log, or caterpillars on leafy branches. When you do these studies you are being an entomologist.

2009 Landis Arboretum Spring Hawk Watch

2009-04-25T15:24:00.000-07:00

Every year I start off the Landis Arboretum Family Programs (see http://www.LandisArboretum.org) with a Spring Hawk Watch. This year’s watch looked to be a great one, with a clear sunny day and temperatures in the 70’s predicted. It turned out to be a wonderful day to be outside, although there weren’t as many hawks as hoped for.

The Arboretum looks out to the east and south over the Schoharie River. With the north flowing river being a natural migration corridor for hawks and its incredible views the Arboretum is a nice place to catch glimpses of hawks on their northward journey. Unfortunately today didn’t provide as many hawks as in the past. I am not sure that the unseasonably warm weather was to blame. Actually it’s more likely the steady winds from the west may have been more the reason. In any case there weren’t as many hawks as we’ve had on good days in the past, but as the saying goes, “A bad day birding beats a good day at the office.”

The highlight of the day was the sighting of at least 2 bald eagles, one an adult and the other a juvenile, probably a second year bird. There may have been a third eagle, since a second adult was seen after the first in a different location (both were flying up river – southward). I am wondering if these birds may be nesting somewhere near the Arboretum along the Schoharie River.

We also observed four broad-winged hawks and three osprey. All of these birds were flying strongly northward and thus seemed to be migrating through to their northerly nesting territories.

A number of red-tailed hawks were observed flying about in many different directions. None seemed to be moving strongly northward which makes me think that these hawks are resident birds moving about their territories here in the Schoharie Valley.

Rounding out our observations were a kestrel, a sharp-shinned hawk and a variety of unidentifiable raptors, buteos and accipiters. These unidentifiable hawks were quite a distance out, very likely pushed off the ridge that the Arboretum sits on by the predominately westerly breeze that blew consistently through out the day.

There were many other birds in evidence today, either seen or heard. You can’t spend a day looking for hawks without keeping track of these Arboretum visitors also. The most unusual was a barred owl that was heard hooting. When we first heard it we didn’t believe our ears. So I hooted back and to our amazement it responded. Here is an overall list of the 34 species of birds spotted or heard on this day.

Canada goose
mallard
turkey vulture
osprey
bald eagle
broad-winged hawk
red-tailed hawk
American kestrel
barred owl
red-bellied woodpecker
yellow-bellied sapsucker
downy woodpecker
northern flicker
eastern phoebe
blue jay
American crow
common raven
tree swallow
black capped chickadee
tufted titmouse
red-breasted nuthatch
eastern bluebird
American robin
yellow-rumped warbler
eastern towhee
chipping sparrow
song sparrow
northern cardinal
rose-breasted grosbeak (female)
eastern meadowlark
common grackle
brown-headed cowbird
purple finch
American goldfinch

Ostrander Elementary 2nd Grade Ornithologists Study Owls

2009-04-24T10:49:00.000-07:00

Mrs. Busse’s, Mrs. Lazinski’s and Mrs. Dutka’s second grade ornithologists just completed their owl pellet dissection over the last two weeks. Here is what they found:

Busse – 8 pellets dissected; 18 mice, no shrews, no moles and no birds
Lazinski – 10 pellets dissected; 19 mice, 1 shrew, no moles and no birds
Dutka – 9 pellets dissected; 20 mice, 4 shrews, no moles and no birds

You can look at the other schools where I have visited this spring to see what the ornithologists there have found by looking through previous entries in my blog (there is additional information on owl ecology and ornithology studies in these blog entries, as well as the owl pellet data). I do have a few more owl ecology classes coming up before the end of school, so there will be more data add in the near future. Here to date, is an overview of what we’ve found in our owl pellet dissections in my previous school visits this year.

Including the pellets dissected at Ostrander Elementary our total tally is:
212 pellets dissected; 447 mice, 32 shrews, 6 moles, 6 birds

The average number of animals eaten per pellet is 2.3 animals.

Check this blog for more owl pellet data as I complete my ecologist-in-residence programs through to the end of the school year.

Kings Elementary School Owl Ecology/Owl Pellet Analysis

2009-04-06T15:25:00.000-07:00

Today I visited the 3rd and ¾ PIE classes at Kings Elementary School in Warwick. We had a discussion on being ornithologists. It focused on how students might do a project to document where three common owls, the Eastern Screech-owl, the Great Horned Owl, the Barred Owl might be found in the Warwick area, including researching the owls’ habitat and calling behavior. This is exactly the kind of work that was done by many volunteer and professional ornithologists to complete the New York State Breeding Bird Atlas project, a multi-year project that was just culminated with the publishing of “The Second Atlas of Breeding Birds of New York State (see link below).

This discussion led to an owl pellet dissection and analysis. We can add this information to the other owl pellet analysis that I have done with other school and get an even better look at what owls - barn owls in the Pacific Northwest, northern California, Oregon and Washington – prefer to eat.

Why west coast barn owls? I do many owl ecology classes in which students take apart many owl pellets. I use many hundreds of pellets every year with all my school programs. It would be impossible for me to get enough pellets from wild owls since the pellets they regurgitate would be found spread all around the forested territories that the owls live in – a wild great horned owl, barred owl or screech-owl might spit out three or four pellets each night, but would likely do so at three or four different locations dispersed about the forest and forest edge environments that they live in. To find several pellets would be lucky, to find hundreds, nearly impossible, even if I were to find several owl nests and get the pellets expelled by the growing young. So, I buy my pellets from Pellets, Inc. (see link), which is a company located in Bellingham, WA. Pellets, Inc. collects barn owl pellets from the areas of northern California through Oregon into the state of Washington.

Why barn owls? When barn owls live in essentially open country areas of farmland or abandoned buildings (especially at the outskirts of towns) they roost and nest in barns, and old buildings like unused factories, churches or houses. After hunting and feeding upon several small prey animals the owls return to the roosting or nesting site and soon regurgitate a pellet. An owl might cough up three or four pellets a night. A family of five or six owls can produce 15 to 24 pellets a night. If someone knows where these roosting or nesting places are they can find many pellets. Pellets, Inc. hires people to visit such roosting and nesting places to collect pellets. The pellets are fumigated to kill moth larva, inspected and wrapped in aluminum foil and shipped out to scientists, teachers, students and naturalists.

Why fumigated? An owl pellet is mostly mammal fur with some bones stuffed in the package. Although the fur and bones are of no nutritional value for the owl there is still food available in the bones and fur. Some species of moth specialize in eating mammal fur – these are the very same moths that get into our closets and eat holes in our wool sweaters, suits and other clothing (after all, wool is sheep or other animal fur). Actually it is the larvae of the moths that do the eating. If a pellet has been lying around a long enough time, a female moth will find it and lay some eggs on the pellet. Larvae will hatch from the eggs and begin to eat the fur in the pellet. Pellets, Inc. fumigates the pellets to kill any moth larvae that happen to be in the pellet. You will sometimes find these dead larvae. They are small, about an eighth of an inch long, and brownish in color. If you look carefully at them you will see the segmented body, including the head and six small legs of the larva. If you find several dead larvae you will also likely find tiny black, sand-grain size specks. This is the frass or poop that the larvae produced when they were alive eating the fur. These larvae are performing the function of decomposers reducing the final remains of dead animals to their elemental parts that will then become part of the soil for plants to use in the cycle of life.

Here are the results of the Kings Elementary School owl pellet dissection:
Mr. Dinoto’s class – rodents, 17; shrews, zero; moles, zero; birds, 1 – 8 pellets dissected
Mrs. Flynn/Mrs. Nachtigal’s classes – rodents, 34; shrews, 2; moles, 1; birds, zero – 18 pellets dissected
Mrs. Parker’s class – rodents, 21; shrews, zero; moles, zero; birds, zero – 9 pellets dissected
Mrs. Kipp’s class – rodents, 20; shrews, 1; moles, zero; birds, 1 – 11 pellets dissected

Totals for all four groups
Rodents, 92; shrews, 3; moles, 1; birds, 2 – 46 pellets dissected

The average number of animals eaten per pellet was 2.1 animals.

Look at the other results for owl pellet dissections that I discuss here on the blog. You can compare these findings or, better yet, add them to the findings to get a better idea of what barn owls of the Pacific Northwest prefer to eat.

More Owl Pellet Analysis

2009-03-16T17:21:00.000-07:00

Last week I visited the Lynnwood Elementary School and worked with 4th grades doing Owl Ecology and Owl Pellet Dissection. Here are the results:

Mrs. Janssen’s class – 24 rodents, 1 shrew, 0 moles, 0 birds in 11 pellets
Mr. Miller’s class – 14 rodents, 1 shrew, 0 moles, 1 bird in 6 pellets
Ms. Shields’ class – 26 rodents, 0 shrews, 0 moles, 0 birds in 11 pellets
Mrs. Lodge’s class – 23 rodents, 0 shrews, 0 moles, 1 bird in 11 pellets

For a total of 87 rodents, 2 shrews, 0 moles, 2 birds in 39 pellets.

Definitely rodents are the most eaten food. In my hypothesis that I discuss with the students I state that shrews are the second most eaten food. Our analysis seems to indicate that shrews and birds are tied for second.

If we look at more owl pellets (see Previous Posts - More Owl Pellet Data and Owl Pellets and Predator Prey Relationships) we see that, indeed, shrews are the second favorite, with moles and birds a close tie for third favorite.

If we look at the number of animals eaten per pellet we find 91 animals eaten in 39 pellets for an average of 2.3, very close to the 2.5 that I predict. This supports the thought that a barn owl eats between 2 or 3 animals before it gets full and proceeds to digest their food producing a pellet.

Chicken Egg Incubation

2009-03-05T08:36:00.000-08:00

Hello scientists! It's that time of year to be ornithologists studying the life cycle of birds by incubating chicken eggs. I have incubators going at the Sapphire Elementary School and the Smith Clove Elementary School, both in Monroe-Woodbury, and will be starting incubators at the Martin Luther King Magnet School in Schenectady.

I start of the incubation program introducing students to the ecology of the chicken, a bird that has been living with people for many thousands of years. Of course, people have wanted chickens living with them for all this time because of the food they provide - their eggs and the chickens themselves - chicken nuggets, barbequed chicken, roast chicken or chicken soup with rice - "happy once, happy twice, happy chicken soup with rice". Happy for us because of the food they give us. I'm not sure how happy for the chicken since, if we are going to eat it, it has to be killed and then cut up in preparation for it to be cooked for our food.

The word chicken doesn't tell us whether it is a male or female. Like bluebird, mallard or bald eagle, it's the name of the kind of bird it is. When I say chicken, I am talking about the group, as a whole. I like to talk to students about what chickens, as a whole need to do to survive. I call it chicken business - find food, find water, look out for danger and go to the bathroom (the top four). Other chicken business includes, talking to other chickens, resting, exercising, taking a bath (not a water bath, but a dust bath to get rid of biting insects). All the activities that both male and female chickens do every day.

The male chicken is called a rooster. A farmer doesn't need a rooster to get eggs, all the farmer needs are the female chickens, the hens. A farmer also doesn't need a rooster to wake them up in the morning either - you see the roosters crow (that's what their "cockle-doodle-do" call is called) at all hours of the day and even night. That crowing is important for why the farmer might have a rooster. When roosters crow they are saying, "Check me out I'm so good looking!" This message is for the hens. If they can get the attention of the hens then they might mate and a baby chick could be in the egg laid by the hen.

The hens lay the eggs, take care of the eggs and take care of the baby chicks. Roosters pretty much do nothing to help her out in these matters. Most of the time the hens lay the eggs in the chicken coop or hen house as it is sometimes called. They usually don't make much noise, they go in lay an egg, it doesn't take much time, and when they're done it's off to do chicken business. The farmer comes and takes the eggs out of the coop and the chickens keep laying more eggs. A hen in one year can lay about 200 eggs (one egg every other day on average), although the world record egg layer laid a little more than 370 eggs in one year. That meant she laid an egg a day, with a few days in which she laid two eggs.

A hen that wants to have a family, though, will not go into the coop to lay her eggs. She'll try to find a secret hiding place instead. This hen would be called broody. She'll return to her secret hiding place each day that she is ready to lay an egg until 5 or 6 eggs are there, and she stops laying eggs. This would be called a clutch of eggs. She will now use her body to keep the eggs warm, at the special temperature of 99.5 degrees. At that temperature the embryo begins to grow. The hen will incubate the eggs for 21 days, hardly ever leaving to do chicken business. Every now and then the hen moves the eggs around, ensuring the embryo is doesn't get stuck in one spot in the egg.

When the chicks hatch mother hen's incubation business is done and new business is at hand - taking care of baby chicks and teaching them chicken business - like where to get food and water and most importantly how to look out for danger (no mother hen doesn't need to teach the chicks how to go to the bathroom - they already know how to do that). This business will take many weeks and in all this time the hen will not lay any eggs. If a farmer let's all the hens go broody there won't be any eggs to collect. Farmers usually don't let the hens incubate the eggs. The farmer looks for all the secret hiding places.

If a farmer needs new chicks the farmer has to incubate the eggs, using an incubator. The incubator keeps the eggs warm, at 99.5 degrees. Water is placed in the incubator to provide moisture for the growing chick. The eggs are turn frequently, just like mother hen would. With good care and luck, baby chicks hatch in 21 days.

One of my favorite activities is to candle the eggs at about the 8th or 9th day of incubation. A light is shown through the egg, casting shadows on the egg shell of four different things that tell of the growing chick; an air space, veins, eye spot and movement of the eye spot and veins. View this video of an egg I candled at Sapphire Elementary - it's a work in progress. I'm having some difficulties with the technology of the webcam but will work on it and hopefully get a better video soon.

More Owl Pellet Data

2009-02-06T12:55:00.000-08:00

The Young Scholars Program at Cambridge Elementary School (NY) has given me a chance to collect more data on owl prey preference. Here it is:

5 pellets dissected included the remains of:

11 mice, 1 shrew, 0 moles, 0 birds

That is an average of 2.4 animals eaten for each pellet produced.

Look at these other postings of owl pellet study for more data - Bushkill Elementary Owl Ecologists and Owl Pellets and Predator Prey Relationships

Here we are having a discussion on the three common owls of the Cambridge, NY area - the eastern screech-owl, the great-horned owl and the barred owl. The barn owl has been included in the discussion even though it is not usually found in NewYork state because the pellets that we dissect come from barn owls.

Students are busy dissecting owl pellets looking for the bones of the owl's prey. The owl eat the prey whole. Very quickly in the digestion process the bones, fur and feather (in the event that the owl has eaten a bird) are packed into a ball and regurgitated.

Here is some of the hands-on investigation that reveals what the owl ate to produce a pellet.

I have some specimens of prey items that I will photograph and post soon.

bushkill elementary owl ecologists

2009-02-04T08:44:00.000-08:00

My apologies to the 4th grade Ornithologists at Bushkill Elementary School in Nazareth, PA. I had meant to get their data online sooner but got tied up in a conference on children’s summer camps and nature programs.

During the week of January 26th we investigated the predator preferences of barn owls by dissecting owl pellets. The owl pellets were purchased from Pellets Inc. and come from the Pacific Northwest. Here is the data we collected regarding the kinds of prey barn owls eat and how many they eat in a meal that produces a pellet.

DeBoer’s class - 10 pellets dissected produced 23 mice, 1 shrew, 1 mole, 1 bird
Roth’s class - 11 pellets dissected produced 24 mice, 0 shrews, 0 moles, 0 birds
Hahn’s class - 10 pellets dissected produced 23 mice, 1 shrew, 0 moles, 0 birds
Apruzzi’s and Stump’s classes (combined) - 22 pellets dissected produced 41 mice, 1 shrew, 2 moles, 0 birds

In each class we had discussed our hypothesis that mice were the most preferred food, followed distantly by shrews, with moles and birds tied for the least desired. With each class it was clear that barn owls definitely prey more on mice than any other animal. In each class though, it wasn’t as clear as to any difference in preference for shrews, moles or birds. The percentage of prey eaten listed by class follows:

DeBoer – 88% mice, 4% shrews, 4% moles, 4% birds
Roth – 100% mice, 0% shrews, 0% moles, 0% birds
Hahn – 96% mice, 4% shrews, 0% moles, 0% birds
Apruzzi and Stump – 93% mice, 2% shrews, 5% moles, 0% birds

We agreed that we did not have a large enough sample to have a clear picture of the predation on the three less favored kinds of prey. In order to collect more data we would need to dissect more pellets. Much as the students would have loved to done this neither time nor funding allowed it. By combining the information for all three groups though, a different picture emerges. Taken in whole the 4th grades dissected a total of 53 pellets and found the following: 94% mice, 2.5% shrews, 2.5% moles, 1% birds. Perhaps we still do not have a big enough picture and should take apart even more pellets. Since we can't take apart more pellets we can look at data collected by other schools that I have worked with - see Previous Posts: Owl Pellets and Predator Prey Relationships for Monday, January 19 and the data collected by Jefferson Elementary students. How does this alter our conclusions about barn owl food preference?

One final aspect of predator prey relationship is illustrated with our dissection, the balance of nature, the number of predators balance with the number of prey. Our dissection revealed that 118 animals were eaten to produce 53 pellets. That is an average of 2.2 animals per pellet. An owl will produce about 4 pellets a night. That means in one night a barn owl will eat about 9 animals (mostly mice). In one year that owl will eat about 3,300 mice (and other small animals). Mice are prolific breeders. Owls keep the mouse population in balance by preying on these many small creatures.

Ornithology and Mid-winter Bird Survey at Bushkill Elementary

2009-01-24T05:49:00.000-08:00

At the Bushkill Elementary School in Nazareth, PA, 5th grade students joined me as ornithologists doing a survey of winter birds in the school’s environmental area. Before going into the field we spent about 15 minutes inside talking about how birds are identified. Our discussion centered on how coloration, size, shape, behavior, habitat and calls or songs are used to identify birds with the use of bird field guides. The examples of field guides were A Field Guide to the Birds, Roger Tory Peterson, Field Guide to Birds of Eastern North America by David Allen Sibley, and Birds of Pennsylvania by Franklin Haas and Roger Burrows. The discussion included why ornithologist might do a bird survey. I mentioned that two bird surveys were currently in progress across the northeast, including a bald eagle survey and a waterfowl survey. Other surveys of birds are Christmas Bird Counts, Breeding Bird Atlas projects and feeder watch projects.

Some interesting observations included a Carolina Wren that flew from an evergreen into an old garage. I explained how this wren often uses garages and similar structures as shelter. We stood in front of the garage looking into the open door. I explained that sometimes to get a bird to appear ornithologist make a “spish” sound that imitates a bird warning call. This sound can entice a bird to pop up and look around to see what all the fuss is about, giving us a chance to see it. I proceeded to “spish” and the wren popped up from behind some barrels and flew up and out through an opening in the eaves.

We also had some very good looks at a couple of northern mockingbirds. One bird in particular was observed as it looked for food upon the ground. As we approached, it flew up into some wild rose bushes along a fence line, where it began to feed upon rose hips. This bird eventually flew off and joined another mockingbird in a clump of brush. We wondered if these two birds may be starting to look for a nesting site. Several crows were observed flying in pairs and searching upper branches of some of the oaks. Again we speculated that these birds were beginning to look for a place to eventually nest.

Another notable species was sharp-shinned hawk. Two were observed as they perched in trees at a great distance. The most exciting though, was an adult that flew right over the group providing most of the students a really good look at it. A fleeting glimpse of a brown creeper was seen flying in the wooded section. We searched for it in hopes of observing its distinctive feeding behavior on tree trunks. Creepers get their name because they creep up tree trunks. They never creep down. When a creeper reaches a high point it flies down to a lower point on the trunk and starts its climb up all over again. Unfortunately we did not see the creeper again.

Two species were identified by the song only. These included black-capped chickadee and house sparrow. It is likely that for both species there were several individuals present but because we did not see them we counted them as only one bird present.

The afternoon sessions seemed to produce the most numbers of birds, both days. The morning of the second day, with very little wind and sunny conditions proved to have the greatest number of birds with 9 species seen. A total of 15 bird species were seen in the two days.

The value in doing a survey like this is that it provides a glimpse of the kinds of birds that make use of the woodlot and open fields that are a part of the school’s environmental center. Over time this record might be useful in showing trend in the diversity of the kinds of birds and their numbers. These trends might then be related to changing environmental conditions. If negative trends were detected wildlife management plans might be developed to help the affected birds. This data would also be useful in land-use planning and decision making.

More information on birds, bird surveys and citizen science is available at the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology. Click on the link to go to their website.

Our Survey Results
The birds are listed in taxonomic order.

Mrs. Dawe – 10:15 AM Thursday, Jan. 22, cloudy with strong westerly wind
Mourning Dove – 7
Blue Jay – 2
American Crow – 1
Starling – 1
Purple Finch – 1

Ms. Williams – 1:15 PM Thursday, Jan. 22, mostly sunny with no wind
Mourning Dove – 3
Downy Woodpecker – 1
American Crow – 14
Carolina Wren – 1
Starling – 12
Dark-eyed Junco – 3

Mr. Oberman – 10:15 AM Friday, Jan. 23, sunny with no wind
Sharp-shinned Hawk – 3
Blue Jay – 3
American Crow – 25
Black-capped Chickadee – 1
White-breasted Nuthatch – 1
Northern Mockingbird – 1
European Starling – 3
Dark-eyed Junco – 3
House Sparrow – 1

Mrs. Trach – 1:15 PM Friday, Jan. 23, sunny with no wind
Mourning Dove – 12
American Crow – 4
Brown Creeper - 1
American Robin – 20
Northern Mockingbird – 3
European Starling – 106

Owl Pellets and Predator Prey Relationships

2009-01-19T16:13:00.000-08:00

Last Thursday, January 15, I visited the Jefferson Elementary School in the Schalmont CSD. I did Owl Ecology for the 5th graders. It's a fun session to do that gets students excited about science, helps illustrate scientific methods and gives the students a chance to explore and understand owls and their relationship to their prey.

There are many resources about owl pellet dissection. I suggest checking out pelletsinc. for owl pellets and teaching resources. You can click on the link to reach this great resource. Here I would like to give some thoughts on how dissecting owl pellets can lead into a discussion of predator prey relationship.

The culmination of the class is to analyze the results of the owl pellet dissection. From our investigation we know, not only what the owls ate, but also how many of each of their prey were eaten. On this day we had the following results:
Mrs. Guzewich's class - 11 pellets dissected - 19 mice, 6 shrews, 1 moles, 0 birds
Mrs. Fitzgerald's class - 10 pellets dissected - 22 mice, 4 shrews, 0 moles, 0 birds
Mrs. Walker's class - 10 pellets dissected - 23 mice, 0 shrews, 0 moles, 0 birds
Mrs. Wood's class - 11 pellets dissected - 25 mice, 8 shrews, 1 mole, 1 bird

The total number of pellets dissected was 42 with a total of 89 mice, 18 shrew, 2 moles and 1 bird. That gives an average of 2.6 prey per owl pellet for the samples investigated at Jefferson Elementary. A barn owl produces about 4 pellets a night. So in one night they might eat at least 10 animals. In one year an owl might eat over 3600 mice (mice being the most common prey - the numbers seen above can help illustrate a discussion of what the most common food for barn owls is). This large consumption of prey illustrates the concept of a balance in nature between predator and prey. Prey species reproduce in large numbers. These prey support a population of predators. As the predators increase the number of prey decreases. This smaller number of prey can not support as large a population of predators. The number of predators begin to decline. As the number of predators decreases the number of prey that survive can increase, eventually allowing for an increase in the number of predators. This balance of increasing, then decreasing then again increasing is part of the story behind population cycles of wildlife.

Pond Ecology at Central Valley and Circleville

2008-11-19T14:34:00.000-08:00

In the last few weeks I’ve had the chance to do my ecologist-in-residence visits at the Central Valley Elementary School in the Monroe-Woodbury School District and the Circleville Elementary School in the Pine Bush School District where some of the students had a chance to be aquatic ecologists looking for animal life in the pond. This is one of my favorite sessions and one that the students and teachers all enjoy.

I bring in buckets of pond water (my favorite ponds to get samples from are at the Landis Arboretum in Esperance, NY – but you can find any of these creatures in most ponds throughout the Northeast). I explain how an aquatic ecologist tries to understand how pond organisms live, thrive and survive. I explain some of the equipment that an aquatic ecologist might use to investigate the pond environment. The students get to use my “uncamouflage” equipment (see my upcoming Aquatic Ecology Field Kit write-up coming soon) to capture and observe the many small creatures of the pond.

After a short time of capturing pond life we settled in for my final overview. I have taken some of the smallest samples and placed them in a special slides (available from Carolina Biological Supply Co., called “deep well slides”) that are used with old style slide projectors. I call these slides, "special aquariums" that can be used to magnify the pond animals, taking something that might be a quarter of an inch large and making it look about 30 or 40 times larger. We have the chance to look at the same enlarged creature and learn about "who is who, what they do, how they grow and where they go".

Here are a few of the creatures we recently found. All of these creatures are in the pond now as winter approaches. They will live under the ice through the winter and will be ready to continue on with their life cycle when the warm weather melts the ice on the pond next spring.

The scud or side swimmer is a kind of freshwater shrimp. They belong to a group of arthropods called amphipoda. They are scavenger, eating dead plant and animal material. They then are eaten by a lot of larger pond animals and thus are important parts of the food chain.

They often are easy to see but hard to catch. They are easy to see because they spend a lot of time swimming rapidly around in the water. They are hard to catch because as soon as they stop in a bunch of pond plants or detritus they disappear with they good camouflage.

One of my favorite creatures to show students is the phantom midge or gnat. It's called a phantom because it has a transparent (see-through) body. What a great adaptation for living in the water, to have a body that is see-through. Many times you don't notice that there is a midge larva in view. You see a few pieces of what looks like dirt floating in the water and then you see them wiggle around and notice the outline of a larva's body. Those little specks of dirt are the float bladders inside the midge that help it sink or float. You can also see it's digestive system.

The phantom midges or gnats are hunters. They use their antennae to catch small aquatic organisms and pull them to their mouths so that they can eat them. Here in this picture you can see these antennae. They look like a hook on top of the larva's head.

This past sample had hundreds of mayfly nymphs, most of them just about a quarter of an inch long. I suspect that most of these had hatched from eggs just before the cold weather arrived. They will live in the pond along with the other creatures we were capturing through the winter and be among the first of the pond insects to grow up and leave the pond next spring.

Mayfly nymphs are hunters in the pond. They will eat other small pond creatures like daphnia and copepods, along with aquatic worms and other insects.

When they are ready to leave the pond they will climb up out of the water on to a rock, or log, or dock, or something sticking out of the water and shed their exoskeleton one last time. This time their new exoskeleton will have something none of their past exoskeletons have had, wings!

When they leave the pond, though, they will have no digestive system. That means that the adult mayfly will not live long, but it leaves extra room for eggs in the females. They quickly find mates and lay eggs in the water for their species to continue on.

Here is a damselfly nymph. They are hunters while they live in the water. As they eat and grow they become to large for their exoskeletons and shed. Sometimes we are lucky and find the cast off exoskeleton they leave behind when they do.

When they are ready to leave the water they do the same as mayflies and climb up on to a dry area and shed their exoskeleton that also has new wings. They pump up their wings so that they are fully extended. The wings dry off and harden and off flies the damselfly to be a winged hunter chasing down and catching flying insects. One of their favorite insects to eat are mosquitoes.

I always leave the leach as the last of the critter to look at. What most people know about leaches if fiction from movies that they see, or folk tales that they've heard. Scientists are interested in the facts, not fiction. Here are some of the facts about leaches.

Most of the leeches that we find in a pond do not suck blood. They are either hunters or scavengers. All leeches have a suction cup tail that can grasp on to an animal like a duck or turtle. When the animal travels to another pond the leach takes a ride and can end up in a new pond far from where it started.

Blood sucking leeches get a bad rap. When they bite you usually don't feel it (not like deer flies or horse flies), after they bite it usually doesn't swell up or itch (not like mosquito or black fly bites) and to my knowledge there are no diseases passed on by leaches - not like a lot of other biting organisms like ticks [Lyme disease] or mosquitoes [West Nile virus or malaria]. They are important parts of the food chain, eating small animals or scavenging and then being food for larger animals like fish and if you eat the fish that you catch in a pond food in turn part of the food chain that ends in you.

Decomposing Deer

2008-11-13T16:40:00.000-08:00

Last year during my ecologist-in-residence at the Central Valley Elementary School we observed turkey vultures circling around what turned out to be a dead deer. During my visit this year with Mr. Petersen's class we went to check out what happened to the deer. We only found bones, mostly vertebrae and ribs along with one scapula, one femur and one humerus. Here's what I think happened to the dead deer as it decomposed and passed energy on to other organisms and returned nutrients to the environment.

The picture to the right shows a broken femur. I think the deer was hit by a car and ended up with a compound fracture of the femur. The impact of the car did not kill the deer right away and the deer was able to run up along the rock wall away from the highway. Through the action of running the sharp edges of the broken bone probably severed the femoral artery, resulting in the deer dieing.

The compound fracture would have left a gaping wound that the flies would have landed on to lay their eggs. That's why that area of the deer was more quickly consumed than the area of the upper body and head. Normally the place the flies would most likely lay eggs if there is no break in the skin would be the eyes, mouth and nose, among other open areas of the body. Notice in the picture to the left how the head area has had very little effect from fly larvae.

As the flies consumed more of the flesh of the area of the hind leg (the broken femur), that left a large opening for vultures to begin to eat the dead deer. The area shown in the picture to the right shows the affects of vultures and possibly other scavengers as they began eating the deer for food.

All of this is nature's way of recycling nutrients and passing along energy in the food chain. With the actions of the scavenger and decomposer organisms dead animals are returned to the earth and results in the continuation of life.

This kind of study and analysis is something that a terrestrial community ecologist would investigate.

Outdoor Education Conference

2008-10-28T14:24:00.003-07:00

I just got back from the New York State Outdoor Education Association annual conference. As it is every year, it was great conference. I never compare one year to another (I learned this in my years as a summer camp counselor - every year had its high points, and there was nothing to be gained by comparing one year to another). The highlights for me is always the auction - I have a blast doing it. We raise money for the Association's endowment. People have a great time (at least that's what they tell me). I'm already looking forward to next years conference which will be held September 24-27, 2009 in Fishkill, NY. The focus of the conference will be the Hudson River and local environs, as 2009 is the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson's exploring the Hudson River.

I am trying to think what workshops I should submit for consideration to the conference committee. I think the site will lend itself nicely to a nature songs and stories campfire workshop. I might also offer to do a nature trail mapping session.

One of the key note speakers at this years conference was David Sobel who spoke on place based learning. It was an inspiring presentation that dovetailed with a workshop that I lead on integrating environmental education across the curriculum - exploring how outdoor environmental education can help teachers teach math, science, language arts, art, physical education and music. We had a spirited discussion, with a lot of good examples of nature centers, outdoor education centers and BOCES programs that provided service to schools to help them take advantage of the outdoor natural environment to stimulate learning in all areas, not just science.

I am still left though, with the question of how do we encourage all schools to take advantage of the real world to inspire and excite students in learning? It is encouraging to see the excitement of Richard Louv's book "Last Child in the Woods" has created. In fact there is legislation at the Federal level called Leave No Child Inside that is slowly moving though the halls of Congress. Newsweek in it's September 15 issue had an article on "eco-education". But it's all small steps when you think of all the schools there are and how little teachers take students into the real world to facilitate learning. I am resolved to try to contact school administrators that I know and get their opinion on how more action in bringing the real world to the classroom might happen. It would seem to me if there is to be a shift in the attitudes of schools regarding teaching in outdoor environment and immediate community surrounding the school that it will require a multi-prong approach involving pre-service (teacher preparation at the college level) teacher training, the classroom teachers, school administrators, parents and those involved in providing enrichment programs using the natural environment (nature center, outdoor center, museum, and parks program staff).

recent bell top elementary school visit

2008-10-22T16:06:00.000-07:00

I just finished my annual ecologist-in-residence visit at the Bell Top School in the East Greenbush CSD in Troy, NY. My visit culminated with my nature tunes and tales assembly program that was highlighted by a performance of "The Lorax" by Mrs. Gigglio's 3rd grade class (special appearance by Peter as the Lorax).

We investigated general ecology, insect study (including capturing a pair of mating walking sticks), aquatic ecology (study pond water organisms in water samples from the Landis Arboretum in Esperance, NY), mammals and trees.

One of the things that I empasize with all these classes is that scientist do research to find answers to the questions they come up with. An example of this has a fun side to the learning opportunity. In my tree exploration walks I end with a short discussion of how we humans use trees - for lumber, food, paper, inspiration, enjoyment, etc. I then procede to show them how I can use an acorn cap from an oak tree to make a whistle. The shrill whistle produces a group of ear plugging young scientists asking "How did you do that?" My response - "You'll have to do some research."

I suggested that they might google "acorn cap whistle" with mom or dad's help not knowing if there was indeed a site that would show how. Indeed there is! Check the link I have here or search for yourself.

Nature Walks at Smith Clove Elementary School, Central Valley, NY

2006-10-11T21:18:00.000-07:00

I’m at the Smith Clove Elementary School in Central Valley this week and next. With the 1st grade students we’ve been ecologists studying “Who is who, what they do, how they grow and where they go” in the forest ecosystem. We are taking advantage of a beautiful nature trail that crosses a stream and circles through a mixed hardwood forest, with some fairly large black cherry, white ash and variety of oak trees.

We spent some time talking about habitat – the place where animals live because they can find “ FOOD, WATER and HIDING PLACES” (I think students can better identify with hiding places versus shelter).

Trees are a big part of our exploration, including identifying a locust tree (deep “V” shaped valleys in the bark, deep enough that you can hide your pinkie in them) and a cherry tree (the burnt potato chip or burnt corn flake bark tree). We do a Billy “B” verse (I look to do it as a repeat after me chant – "Who’s Billy “B”?" – definitely a great resource, check him out on the website link) “The roots grow deep”, “Deep into the ground”, “Look for water”, “And drink it when it’s found”.

We explore rotten logs and the concept of what happens to dead things – they “DECOMPOSE”. We found a red-backed salamander under one log. These amphibians are probably the most numerous land vertebrate in our woods. Later, going back to get some pictures of the salamander I found a slug that appeared to be eating salamander eggs. Is this common? I’ll need to research that more.

Here’s something to think about. The large earthworm pictured with the red-backed salamander is the very well known nightcrawler, Lumbricus terrestris. These worms are not native to our northern woods. Their introduction and spread may actually be a problem for the small salamanders like the red-backed. The nightcrawler is out competing the smaller native worms that the red-backs feed upon, resulting in a population of the large nightcrawlers that are too big for the salamanders to eat. Scientist are studying this situation to see how the red-backed salamander will fare. The moral to the story; if you have a bunch of nightcrawlers left over after a day of fishing don’t dump them in the woods.

We found lots of fungi, one of the organisms that help to “DECOMPOSE” things. The best ones were some puff ball fungi, which gave us a chance to see how they puff out “smoke” – the tiny, dust-like spores that will blow away and grow into more fungi if they land on some dead plant material.

Larvae and Owl Pellets at Bell Top Elementary

2006-10-11T20:02:00.000-07:00

My Bell Top stay resulted in a couple of interesting activities/observations that I’d like to share. The first was on one of the school yard ecology nature walks. A student discovered these interesting caterpillars, or so we thought. Because the larva reacted to disturbance by curling back their abdomens over their bodies, my initial reaction was that they were sawflies, which are actually a kind of wasp, but I wasn’t sure so I told the kids that I would have to do some RESEARCH. There were dozens of them eating gray birch leaves, leaving many bare leaf stems. Not going with my initial thought of sawflies, I went to Caterpillars of Eastern North America looking through all of the pages. No luck, so I perused the introduction and low and behold under the section entitled "Not Quite Caterpillars" I found a photo and description of the Croesus latitarsis sawfly. My initial reaction was right, we had found sawfly larvae!

The other activity that I want to share was Owl Ecology, a class I do for many schools. In this class I introduce students to the world of ornithology. I challenge them with the fact that they could be ornithologists studying owls in their own back yard and surrounding community. We start off with the fact that scientists ask questions. What questions would we ask to start off a study of owl close to home – what would those owls be and what habitat would they live.

I like to cover the three most common owls students might encounter, the Eastern Screech-owl, the Great Horned Owl and the Barred Owl. I throw in the Common Barn Owl since the pellets we dissect come from them (check out the Pellets Inc. website link). We chant the types of habitat these owls like – the Screech-owl “Woods and fields and woods and fields – and they don’t mind buildings”; Great Horned Owl “Woods and fields and woods and fields and they don’t like buildings” (at least not a lot of buildings like in a typical city) and the Barred Owl “ Woods and woods and woods and more woods”.

We talk about the calls the owls make and how we would keeps a science journal to record our data on where we find the owls. We discuss their hunting and feeding behavior, and how they produce pellets, the ball of fur and bones regurgitated by the owl after they’re meal. We then investigate the pellets to see if indeed mice are the most favored food (I present this as a hypothesis – “Mice, or rodents, are the number one favored food, shrews are second and tied for third are moles and small birds”. Students dissect pellets, two students per pellet using their hands, a paper clip unbent to serve as a probe, a scrap piece of white paper to work on and a double-sided information sheet (on one side are instructions and a mouse skeleton diagram, on the other side is a bone sorting chart showing the various bones, skull, jaw, fore limbs, shoulder blades, hip bones, hind limbs, vertebrae and ribs). I give them these basic clues as to what to look for and what kind of animal the owls ate (incidentally the pellets come from Barn Owls of the Pacific northwest areas of northern California, Oregon and southern Washington, purchased from Pellets Inc.) – an orange/yellow claw looking bone is not a claw, it’s a jaw of a mouse (actually a vole), a tiny beak like skull with very tiny purplish teeth is from a shrew, a relatively large skull with white teeth from front to back is a mole and birds have no teeth look for a beak and keeled breastbone.

The students dive into the dissection and soon you hear “What’s this?” reverberating around the room. We take time to tally our findings and see if my hypothesis is correct. We always find that mice/rodents are indeed the most often eaten food, sometimes shrews do come out in second place, sometimes we determine that we need more data to figure out if shrew are indeed second and moles and birds third. No matter what our discoveries are it’s an exciting class.

Barn Classroom at Bell Top Elementary, East Greenbush CSD

2006-10-11T19:39:00.000-07:00

Bell Top Elementary School – October 3-5, 2006

I’ve been working with Bell Top Elementary in the East Greenbush School District for many years. They have a wonderful barn classroom that is the focus for a lot of outdoor environmental education above and beyond my residence program that I bring each year.

I’ve got to tell you what I know about the barn classroom because it’s a wonderful inspiration for all schools – an inspiration to take advantage of whatever the outdoors school environment has to offer. Every school has something outdoors that can be put to use inspiring a sense of science, a sense of wonder, a sense of questions that can lead to exploration and learning.

If I don’t have the whole story straight I apologize, but I think that I have the basics. As I understand it, it all started with a student teacher that wanted to do maple sugaring in the spring. She got the permission of the classroom teacher and the administration to do so. They went out into the woods surrounding the school, identified several maple trees, tapped them, and boiled off the sap in the classroom (actually they may have done it in the cooking classroom, yes – the school does cooking classes – a great way to inspire reading, follow directions, making measurements – a whole host of interdisciplinary learning inspired by food!) to make maple syrup.

Several years later when that same teacher, now hired by the school, returned she got the whole school (it is a small school, a couple of classes each for grades K to 5) to take on maple sugaring as a project in the spring. All kinds of learning revolved around the sugaring; reading about it, studying the Native American history of sugaring, tree identification and life cycles, measuring sap, learning about evaporation, teamwork and cooperation. The teachers got parents involved to help tend the boiling-off fire.

While tending the fire on a typical cold, drizzly early March day, the teachers and parents working the project wishfully thought, “Wouldn’t it be nice to have a little sugar shack?” I’m sure in their minds’ eye they saw a simple pole or shed structure with a roof that would keep off the rain.

This led to some research. Several people put together a grant to see what it would take to build a sugar shack. With that grant they consulted with an architect that advised them on what would need to be done to build a small sugar house/barn. Then back to the grant writing, which secured the funds to build a small barn. The architect suggested “Wouldn’t it be nice to have an English style barn for the front half and a Dutch style barn for the other half?” And that was what was built.

The barn, called the Barn Classroom, serves as focal point for apple cider pressing in the fall. In the spring it is a sugar house. Last year I did sheep shearing in the barn while a craftsperson did hand spinning of animal fiber in the art room. The Barn Classroom is the centerpiece for a beautiful nature trail that winds its way through the surrounding woods where the maple trees for springtime tapping grow. A few years ago I surveyed the nature trail with 4th and 5th graders and used that data to draw a scale map for the trail, while the K through 3rd graders developed pages for a nature trail booklet based on topics explored on nature walks I had taken them on.

What a wonderful model for school to look at. Every school should investigate what the outdoor school environment has to offer the teachers and students for learning. Every school doing so needs financial support to help them take advantage of these outdoor learning opportunities. Then , as I tell my classes, “The outdoors is our science laboratory – with all kinds of opportunities for exploring, discovering and learning.”

Field Guides and Reference Books

2006-10-02T12:19:00.000-07:00

Many time teachers and students ask me how I know what I know. The answer is from many years of listening and learning from others, and reading. There are many guide books available and more published every year. I'm sure I'm not the only naturalist that has to watch his wallet when visiting a bookstore. These are my favorites and ones that I find most useful (although any book on nature is definitely useful).

Martin, Alexander C., Herbert S. Zim and Arnold L. Nelson. American Wildlife and Plants: A Guide to Wildlife Food Habits. New York: Dover Publication, Inc. 1961.
This is a reprint of a book published in 1951. I am not sure if it is still in print, but it is well worth borrowing from a library or buying used. The first part of the book lists many of the common animals and what they eat, while the second part of the book lists common plants and which animals eat them.

Palmer, E. Laurence revised by H. Seymour Fowler. A Fieldbook of Natural History. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company. 1949. ISBN 0-07-048425-2.
Another “golden oldy” that is out of print. It is an encyclopedia of natural history giving a short account, usually 5 or 6 paragraphs about a wide range of natural science topics starting with the stars and ending with animals. It covers the atmosphere and weather, rocks and minerals, plants (it is outdated in areas of taxonomy; for example in lists fungi in the plant kingdom), and animals, providing basic information on each.

Ehrlich, Paul R., David S. Dobkin, and Darryl Wheye. The Birder’s Handbook: A Field Guide to the Natural History of North American Birds. New York: Fireside/Simon and Schuster, Inc. 1988. ISBN 0-671-62133-5.
Another great bird resource. The left side pages present information on bird species (organized as most bird books are by taxonomic order, the most primitive birds - loons, first, and the most advanced birds - finches, at the end. The right side pages are various essays on ornithological topics. It’s called a field guide, but it could be considered an encyclopedia.

Pasquier, Roger F. Watching Birds. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company. 1977 ISBN 0-395-25343-8.
I think this is one of the easiest books to read to learn about the biology and ecology of birds. Unfortunately I believe it is out of print.

Sibley, David A. The Sibley Guide to Birds. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 2000.
ISBN 0-679-45122-6
Sibley, David A. The Sibley Guide to Bird Life and Behavior. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 2001.
Two of the most recently published bird books provide a huge amount of information on North American birds.

Budliger, Robert E. and Gregory Kennedy. Birds of New York State. Auburn, WA: Lone Pine Publishing International. 2005. ISBN-13: 978-1-55105-326-4. Author Bob Budliger is a long time friend, colleague and birdwatcher of mine. We enjoyed many Christmas bird counts and few World Series of Birding days together. I have seen several other books in this series, including Birds of New England and Birds of Pennsylvania. This book is nice in that it covers only birds expected to be seen in the state.

Glassberg, Jeffrey. Butterflies through Binoculars: the East. New York: Oxford University Press. 1999. ISBN 0-19-510668-7.
Dunkle, Sidney W. Dragonflies through Binoculars: a Field Guide to Dragonflies of North America. New York: Oxford University Press. 2000. ISBN 0-19-5112687-7
Both of these recent books encourage the use of binoculars to get a close up look at two very popular insect orders, the lepidoptera (the butterfly half of the order) and the odonata.

Wagner, David L. Caterpillars of Eastern North America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 2005. ISBN 0-691-12144-3. Any exploration outdoors will uncover a caterpillar or two. This book is the only one that I know of that covers over 600 of the moth and butterfly caterpillars found in eastern North America. One of the greatest features of the book is a foodplant index which is a most useful aid in identifying a caterpillar.

McGavin, George C. The Pocket Guide to Insects of the Northern Hemisphere. London, England: Parkgate Books Ltd. 1998. ISBN 1-85585-362-0.
I think this is one of the best beginner books on insects. I don’t know if it is still in print. I bought mine at discount table at Barnes & Nobles (or was it Borders?). I wish I had bought all of the copies they had. It has very nice illustrations and good detailed information on about 200 insect families, just right for the beginning entomologist.

Newcomb, Lawrence. Newcomb’s Wildflower Guide. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. 1977.
One of the two classic wildflower field guides. I think naturalists are pretty well divided in half as to which guide the prefer, Newcomb’s or Peterson’s. Newcomb’s uses a code system that incorporates observations of plant parts that leads to sections of the book where the final identification is done by matching the diagram.

Peterson, Roger T. and Margaret McKenny. A Field Guide to Wildflowers of Northeastern and Northcentral North America. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. 1968. ISBN 0-395-183251
The Peterson guide uses a visual approach that involves observations of color, form and other details. This does help lead to a better understanding of plant families (scientists use the word family for very closely related groups).

Peterson Guides: the most popular of all the field guides, probably the inspiration for most field guides and worth a short story about Roger Tory Peterson and what led him to write about and illustrate birds. The story goea, as a child in western New York he walked a long distance to school. As it was, he was often late in arriving. After many late arrivals, one of his teachers (I believe it was third grade) asked him why. He explained that on his way to school he would stop and study the many birds he encountered and before he knew it he’d be late. This teacher didn’t punish him. Instead, she said if he was going to be late that often he would have to write a report on the birds he observed. Those early bird observations, writings and drawings set Mr. Peterson on a path that would change how almost everyone looks at the natural world.

My favorite Peterson Guides:

Murie, Olaus J. A Field Guide to Animal Tracks. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. 1974. ISBN 0-395-19978-6.
Covell, Charles V. Eastern Moths. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. 1984. ISBN 0-395-361001
As far as I know Houghton Mifflin has not recently printed this book, although I don't think they say it is out of print. At a family nature convention many years ago I was introduced to night-lighting for moths and other nocturnal, light-attracted insects. I had to get the guide to Eastern Moths. I searched in what seemed to be almost every book store from Albany to Boston for it. I even searched for it on used book store sites like ABE.com with no luck. I finally walked into a small paperback book store in Gloucester, MA. They had two copies. I should have bought them both.

Harrison, Hal H. A Field Guide to Birds’ Nests. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. 1975. ISBN 0-395-20434-8.

Houghton Mifflin also publishes other books and materials under the Peterson name. These are the Peterson First Guides and Peterson Flash Guides. The First Guides are intended for younger or beginning naturalists. They are described as being a simplified guide. My favorite is:

Wright, Amy B. Peterson First Guide: Caterpillars. Boston: Moughton Mifflin Company. 1993. ISBN 0-395-56499-9
There aren’t many books on caterpillars. This is a great help for identifying and learning about a very easily found creature.

The Flash Guides are plastic laminated fold-out posters. The two I use often are the Flash Guide to Hawks and the Flash Guide to Animal Tracks.

Golden Guides: another very popular series of guides in two formats published by Golden Press of New York. There are the pocket sized books called Golden Guides. The series include several dozen titles. My favorite is:

Reid, George K., Herbert Zim and George Fichter. Pond Life. New York: Golden Press. 1967.

Then there are the Golden Field Guides. These books are the standard field guide size. Probably the most popular is

Robbins, Chandler S., Bertel Bruun and Herbert S. Zim. Birds of North America. New York: Golden Press. 1983. ISBN0-307-33656-5.
This book features range maps on the same page as the bird species account, a criticism of the Peterson Field Guide to Eastern Birds. I knew an ornithologist that took his Golden Field Guide to Birds of North America and drew in all of the field mark notes found in the drawings in the Peterson guide (one of the strengths of that guide).

Another popular series is the Stokes Nature Guides published by Little Brown. My favorites:

Tyning, Thomas F. A Guide to Amphibians and Reptiles. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. 1990. ISBN 0-316-81713-9.

Stokes, Donald W. A Guide to Nature in Winter. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. 1976. ISBN 0-316-81720-1.
This is the best book on nature in winter. It almost reads like a novel and is full of information.

Stokes, Donald W. A Guide to Observing Insect Lives. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. 1983. ISBN 0-316-81727-9.

Lastly, another series of nature guides, called the Finder published by the Nature Study Guild in Rochester, NY. These are pocket sized and very inexpensive. My favorites are:

Miller, Dorcas. Track Finder: A Guide to Mammal Tracks of Eastern North America. Rochester: Nature Study Guild. 1981.

Watts, May Theilgaard and Tom Watts. Winter Tree Finder: A Manual for Identifying Deciduous Trees in Winter. Rochester: Nature Study Guild. 1970.

Watts, May Theilgaard. Tree Finder: A Manual for the Identification of Trees by Their Leaves. Rochester: Nature Study Guild. 1991.

Watts, May Theilgaard. Flower Finder: A Guide to Identification of Spring Wild Flowers and Flower Families. Rochester: Nature Study Guild. 1955.

If you have any questions or would like more information please make use of the comments on this blog.

Teeth of the Lion

2006-09-29T18:42:00.000-07:00

Teeth of the lion - that's the translation of the French word for dandelion - that most common of "weeds" in lawns and school yards. When I show children a dandelion leaf and ask them what it is they call out "It's a weed!" I respond that a weed is just a plant that someone doesn't want - a rose is a weed if you don't want it. If you like dandelions then it's one of the most beautiful flowers you're going to see in your yard.

Dandelions are a great plant to investigate. Take a group out to look at some dandelions on a sunny day. You'll get a chance to watch insects stopping by for a visit. I like to share with others that flowers like dandelions are sending out this message "Eat here!" (not to be confused with "Eat me!" another plant strategy for survival - a lesson for another day) - they do it with visual and fragrant clues.

There are many teaching opportunities that can be centered on dandelions. You have the opportunity to observe and record all the visitors to the dandelion - honey bees, ants, butterflies, beetles. Find a dandelion seed head and delve into the adaptions of wind borne seeds. Where might they end up? What places would be good places? What would be bad? Why are there so many seeds? You can use dandelions as the focus for an exercise in estimating - "How can we estimate the number of dandelions in our school yard?" Toss out a bunch of hula-hoops randomly around the school yard. Figure out the area inside the hoop. Count the number of dandelion plants inside each hoop. Compute the area of the school yard. Get your math wizards working on how this information can be used to come up with the number of dandelions out in you "science laboratory". More interested in language arts - gather around a dandelion and use it to inspire poetry or creative writing.

Want to know more about dandelions? I happen to have the inside scoop on a great book that's coming out in October. Well, I have to admit I'm biased because it's written by my wife, Anita Sanchez. The books is "The Teeth of the Lion: The Story of the Beloved and Despised Dandelion". Check out the link for it.