Today was a nice Friday afternoon and attention spans were seriously
eroding. So we blew out of class and outside, hiking over to the local lake
a few blocks away. My group stopped to look under an old board and we found
8 pink and hairless baby Microtus townsendii, based upon the mother who
bolted out the back once her "roof" was so rudely removed. As we hunched
over to quietly examine the pink squirming jelly beans, a huge span of wings
went overhead and a great blue heron landed at the edge of the sidewalk,
just a few yards away. It strode into the grassy waste, oblivious to us,
and keenly intent on hunting. One of the girls figured out that it must be
hunting mama mouse and indignantly she stood up and yelled, SHooo! The
heron snapped back its head in surprise, then with a primal squawk, flew
off, leaving mamma mouse to live another day.

The students puzzled over whether or not a GBH would eat mice or not. As
always, I let my students find these things out for themselves and they
found out that indeed.

Rob Sandelin


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