Subject: The birds take control of the botany lesson
Date: May 21 14:05:01 2004
From: Rob Sandelin - floriferous at msn.com


I was in a local park with one of my classes, and I had just said, "This is
great time of year for watching birds, they are doing all kinds of cool
stuff", when an Eagle flew over our heads, maybe 15 feet, dangling a huge
fish, which seemed to be so heavy it was causing the eagle to barely be able
to fly. The Eagle sank out of view, we heard a huge CRACK, and then an eagle
squawk, then a crash in the bushes. We could not see what was going on so I
had them all write what they imagined happened.

Then a few minutes later we were setting up a plant study site and a pair
of flickers went zig-zagging around us, zipping and threading between the
trees all the time having all kinds of wicka wicka discussion. They landed
on a trunk, five feet off the ground, right in front of us, then went
around and around and up the tree, continuing the argument, making those
wonderfully silly looking head moves.

With some difficulty we got back to our plant research, only to find a
bewicks wren nest with babies on our first transect. As we sat down to
tabulate the density numbers a baby robin ran right up into the middle of
some of the kids, looked up at them, nabbed a huge worm, then scurried back
into the brush.

Sheesh, botany...what was I thinking? I gave in, and we birded the rest of
afternoon.

Rob Sandelin
South Snohomish County at the headwaters of Ricci Creek
Sky Valley Environments <http://www.nonprofitpages.com/nica/SVE.htm>
Field skills training for student naturalists
Floriferous at msn.com