Birds at the Lake

The kids and I went out to the lake for a quick look.  I wanted them to see the Osprey before they left and we did get to see it.  Some of us even saw it dive down to nab a fish! 

 

We also saw many of the Yellow-rumped Warblers that are passing through the area.  They are headed north, so we only have a short time to see them.

 

While we were standing on the bridge, the Purple Martins were hovering over us only 2 feet above our heads.  They were so pretty! 

 

There were other birds there too:  Ring-billed Gulls, Tree and Barn Swallows, Blue-winged Teal, Double-crested Cormorants, Great Blue Heron, Yellow-headed and Red-winged Blackbirds, and many others.  It seems like sometimes a person sees more birds on a misty or rainy day.

Yellow-rumped Warbler

The Yellow-rumped Warblers are not so afraid of people and the kids were able to get close to them. 



Uh-oh!  What happened to the Canada Goose's nest?  This doesn't look good.

Arbor Day

The kids and their young Black Hills Spruce trees!

Every kindergartener in the county gets a tree on Arbor Day.  What a nice tradition!

Osprey

Osprey are very impressive raptors!  There were five of them at the town lake after school yesterday.  I have never even seen one in town before, so this was a nice surprise! I saw them sitting in the trees and flying about.  There call is loud.  Here is a photo of one from yesterday.

To learn more about Osprey check out this site and video:

All About Birds - Osprey

Osprey video on ARKive

Yellow-rumped Warblers

Yellow-rumped Warblers are beautiful migrant birds that have recently invaded our town.  Often they go unnoticed, so when I saw that there were many around the school at noon, I took the kids out on this windy day to see if they could catch a glimpse of these active, little birds.  They were able to see quite a few of these little warblers and they quickly fell in love with them!

Yellow-rumped Warbler

Getting a closer look!

Kindergarten Round-up

We had 11 students visit for kindergarten round-up.  We did some activities, listened to some stories, did some art work and played.  It was a great morning!

Sink or Float?

We did two days of experiments trying to discover what sinks and what floats.  First, the students had to guess what they thought would happen and then we did the experiments to find out if they were correct.  It was a lot of fun and possibly the favorite science project of the year!

Bunny Baskets

The kids colored and cut out a bunny and we made it into a little, basket.  Then when they weren't looking, the baskets were gone.  Later they found them hidden around the room with candy in them!  I wonder who would do such a thing?