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.