We had a wonderful day in the Herons today. This morning started with a pileated wood pecker working for its breakfast steps from our front door. We watched in awed silence for more than five minutes then hurried to our birds class. The Herons put their knowledge of adaptations to work as we identified what made a bird a bird. Z.R. even taught our naturalist about counter shading. We used binoculars to identify birds by the dorm then headed to chickadee landing. Even before we handed out birdseed to the students, the chickadees were landing on students' heads. We spent an awed twenty minutes listening to the deafening flutter of bird wings inches from our ears. We also saw a northern hawk owl, a sight that the other Wolf Ridge naturalists were running down the trails to see. We met a chicken and a raven. Finally, we got to band a chickadee. I love the picture below of M.P. holding and then releasing the bird we banded.
Then we had lunch.
Our days are so full up here that it's hard to capture. I try to take a lot of pictures but, inevitably, I end up learning along side the students and get so wrapped up in the activity that I don't record as much as I could.
We survived our afternoon of shelter and fire making. After several failures, each group got a fire going and melted some snow. Everyone got to drink cocoa…although few had "hot cocoa." The Herons approached the survival task with their usual humor and creativity. One child announced that his job was to be his team's "Positive Mental Attitude." While they worked at surviving, he kept up their spirits with clever comments. His team mates were very happy with the arrangements.
Here's a video and photos. I make the videos by having the computer grab random bits of what I shot today – it makes it posible to post a little video, but the results are sometimes unintentionally humerous. Enjoy all the same:
The Rookery 
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