Drawing of Marten Tracks Crossing a Stream

The Trip of Tracks (4-11-13)

On a snowy day in April, Greg met us at the Moose Flats. We found millions of tracks from martens, wolves, squirrels, moose and shrews. Three chaperones went with us. ( Greg, Bre, and Dianne) We started in a meadow and ended in a conifer dominated forest. When we went to the edge of the forest there were more tracks than we found in the meadow. The reason they're close to the forest is the forest provides the animals protection. Our hypothesis says the animals are most likely to be found in a conifer dominated forest. After this discovery we were very surprised they were hanging out at the edge of the forest, and we realized our hypothesis might be correct.

Greg found a stream in the forest.. We also saw tracks from a marten that jumped on a stick to cross the stream so its feet wouldn't get wet. The reason we went to this site is our class wants to visit each site twice. I think this snowy meadow is the last snowy site, but we did it for our year long study about birds and animal sign.

Pictures from the Trail Camera on Glen's Ditch

Moose Picture from Trail Cam on April 9, 2013

Wolf  Picture from Trail Cam on March 27, 2013

Moose Picture from Trail Cam on April 9, 2013

TRIP 93

We went on a field trip to the Duck Pond on April 4, 2013. We had a very special guest accompany us on our trip. Moose 93! We saw a variety of interesting things like: hairy poop, a super good track, a kingfisher, and a eagle. The track we found was a coyote and it was so good we could cast it. It was the first casting of the year! This was the second time we went to the Duck Pond. We went there twice because we're going to every site twice to see if there has been any changes. Moose 93 was with us the whole time!

 

The Squirrely Trip Returns

We left to go to the Airport Ditch for the second time on 3-28-13 to see if our site changed.  We saw a squirrel and we snuck up to it and took lots of pictures when it was eating a pine cone.  After it was a  done eating a pine cone it dropped it.  

We also saw some wolf tracks and followed them for a while.  The wolf tracks were huge!  We think it was chasing a grouse because we think we saw grouse tracks and the wolf tracks were going in circles.  Or it was just chasing its tail!

   

On this field trip two moms came with us: Angela and Tanya.  It was fun and I think they had fun too.

Nature Journaling Next to Glen's Ditch

Nagoonberry Trail Field Report

The 4th and 5th grade class went to Glen’s Ditch for our field trip on the 14th of March. We biked to our study site. While we were biking my bike made a squeaky noise, a squirrel ran out of the woods and I was kind of chased by the squirrel. It saw us and ran into the woods again. It was sunny, and it was 34 degrees fahrenheit. It felt like a heatwave. Our study site was a deciduous thicket, there was no snow on the ground, and we saw bald eagles circling some trees. We also saw moose tracks, moose browse, and 94 piles of moose scat.There was not as much moose scat, if we compare it to Ula’s house. The amount was smaller than what we saw near the airport. We saw crows, ravens, magpies, scoters, cross-bills, and we saw a dead northern harrier. We had a quiet minute and heard Canada geese and the wind. Then we left the Nagoonberry Trail and headed back for school.

The northern harrier was found dead near the Nagoonberry Trail, by the ditch. I think that it died of starvation in the winter because it was small and looked young. I noticed that it was on it’s stomach, with it’s wings kind of spread out to its sides. We nature journaled the northern harrier and I drew its tail and back. It was kind of hard to draw it because its back was dried up and shriveled with rotted back muscles. It was a bit unusual to draw the northern harrier because it was dead, but I enjoyed it.

Birds Under the Fence!

Redpolls in the Trees

Bird Watching From the Classroom

Redpoll Photos Taken by Jack

Redpolls in the Garden (April 3, 2013)

Redpolls in Our Garden!

This week there have been so many redpolls at our garden I can't even count all of them!  The redpolls have been scarfing all of our bird seed down faster then we can fill our bird feeders.  We can't stop looking at the red polls and sometimes Miss Jessie has a hard time getting our attention!

The Fascinating Trip

We went on a field trip on 3/7/13 to a conifer dominated forest at Greg Streveler’s house. We went to collect data for our year long study. There was some fascinating things we saw like squirrel middens and flying squirrel scat. The scat was on a dead tree. If you have seen flying squirrel sign you are lucky because flying squirrel sign is really rare. Also Greg could identify that the scat was flying squirrel because of its shape. After that we walked a little and saw highbush cranberry skins from a grosbeak. We only saw 15 piles of moose scat on this trip. We saw less moose scat because there wasn’t a lot of food for them.  Have you ever seen a flying squirrel or seen its droppings?

Collecting Data in a Conifer Dominated Forest

Grosbeak Sign from 3-7-13

Flying Squirrel Scat from 3-7-13

The Even Crappier Trip (2/14)

We went on a field trip to Ula’s house, and it is a meadow/marsh. We saw 175 piles of moose poop. After that we saw coyote poop and goose poop. We saw two species of birds; canada geese and white winged crossbills. Then we went into Ula’s house and ate lunch. For a desert Tania made us cream puffs with extra whip cream and hot fudge and raspberries. After that Tania let us use Kevin’s collared moose tracking device. We picked up almost all of the moose but four of them.  Then we walked back to the van and drove back to the school.

The Crappy Field Trip

We went on a field trip to the airport clearing on January 24th. The weather was sunny but cold. The snow was kind of icy. When we were walking we saw a squirrel! We also saw an old vole hole in the icy snow! There were a lot of moose there. We could tell because there was a lot of browsed willow!

We saw so many piles of scat that we called it the “Crappy Field Trip.” We saw 112 piles of scat! Greg also came along. He taught us that in the winter there are tiny pieces of moose scat. In the summer there are big pieces of moose scat! He taught us about dog tracks and how you can tell them apart from coyote tracks. He taught us a lot about tracks. We wouldn’t have learned about tracks and scat if it wasn’t for Greg.

Glens Ditch Beaver Part 2

On our last beaver update we told you that the beaver had left. But actually the beaver was just hiding. After hiding the beaver started working more on his dam. Hank had to then set the traps. Mossy wanted the beaver to stay so she volunteered to tear down the dam each day. So now the beaver should be staying.


Two weeks ago we went on a walk to where we put our camera on Glens Ditch. While we were there we saw lots of beaver slides and chewed down trees. After walking for a while we saw a hole in the bank that might be the beaver’s den. When we got back from our walk we looked at photos from our camera. We got some really good photos of moose and the beaver. This week we will be moving our camera to a different place to try to get pictures of other animals.

We caught moose # 76 on our camera on January 6, 2013.

The Squirrely Trip

We went on a field trip to the Airport Ditch area with Tania.  The snow was so hard we could walk on it.  The tracking substrate was poor because the snow was hard and the tracks were getting filled in with new snow.  The reason we went on this trip was to collect data for our year-long study about birds and animal sign.  We found a bunch of squirrel middens under big spruce trees, trails leading into holes and middens, and squirrel tracks.  We were lucky enough to see an actual squirrel!  We found three boxes that looked like boxes for trapping.  We discovered moose beds and three kids could fit in one!  While we were walking we saw either big dog or wolf tracks.  What kind of tracks have you seen lately?

We have some questions:
1.  Do we have any mammals in Gustavus that truly hibernate?
2.  Why are raven's feathers black?         
3.  How far down into the ground do squirrel middens go?
4.  Do squirrels eat in their middens?
5.  How big is a squirrel's territory?
6.  How many squirrels live in one midden?