Santa Cruz Friends

On Thursday, we went up into the Santa Cruz mountains to visit Bonny Doon Elementary. Darrow used to live in that area so it was great to be back home! The school buildings are mixed in amongst tall redwoods and we got to teach in the ideal redwood weather--fog! We worked with our friend Kate  Sommer, who is the LifeLab teacher at the school. LifeLab is an incredible organization that has put gardens in many of the schools in Santa Cruz county and the gardens provide great bird habitat. Students from various grades come to Kate throughout the day for science and garden education. In one day we got to work with every grade between kindergarten and 6th grade! It was great to work with such a wide range of students and experiment with our personal teaching methods. 

Listening in the garden

We began with the younger students and worked on listening, quiet observation, and learned how different habitats can have different birds. We got to watch the chickens in the garden for a bit. Who knew you could learn so much about birds just from watching domestic chickens?

What birds can you hear or see right now?

After lunch, we began working with the older students at the school. They knew a surprising amount about the birds on their campus already. In particular, the students knew all about the Acorn Woodpeckers that they have observed creating an acorn granary in some redwood trees near the school entrance. Good eyes! We were able to help them develop a sense for describing bird sounds and turn them on to ebird.org so they can contribute their observations to citizen science.

Our bird ID and diet lesson for the older students

Checking out the Acorn Woodpecker granary.

Checking out Stellar's Jays in the redwoods!

I hear a bird, but in which direction?

It's hard being a California Quail, hiding from potential predators.

We left Bonny Doon hoping our time spent with the classes will carry over to their studies of watersheds this Spring. Good birding!