Mrs. Hoffman's Classroom     Thursday started out pretty chilly for the third graders as they made their trip to Chadron State Park to attend a bird banding program.  The Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory staff presented several excellent activities for our students to participate in.
      The favorite activity was a "Migration" game in which the students chose a bird and "flew" from station to station.  There were 15 stations the birds could pass through.  Each station held a real life scenario the birds had to act out on their migratory trip.  Alas, some birds were eaten by a cat, some shot with a b-b gun, some were "banded", but the majority of our birds made the trip unharmed.



 We also went on a hike looking for "signs" of animals.  Ask your student what "skat" means.  We looked at trees, grasses, and shrubs.  We saw one pine tree filled with holes from birds in the woodpecker family.
     We watched as Mike, one of the staff, weighed, measured, and banded a lincoln wren.  Then we all got to pet him and Wesley got to let him go.  Maggie gave us lots of good information on birds and bird banding.
We wished we had more time to see more birds but we had to get back to the school for lunch.




We all want to send a big THANK YOU to all the staff who helped present this wonderful and informative program!

Author: 
BCogdill