Earth Explorations

Living as I do here in the northern plains, bird migrants from tropical areas don't show up until May, late April if conditions are good. There will be plenty of migrants moving through the Eastern side of the state in the next few weeks, mostly geese, ducks, and birds like robins but they won't be warblers and orioles. Here on the western most edge of the central flyway, we will have robins and a few geese this month. Weather plays a significant role in migration. I found this Weather Map Primer  resource from Journey North. Since it touches upon some of my favorite explorer topics- birds, maps, weather-I was excited to see it. I really like how the weather map reading is applied to birding. I am facilitating a monthly online professional development opportunity and March's topic is migrations. This resource will make it into the lesson. Also on that Weather Map Primer page I found a link to current global wind conditions which is not only interesting but visually ...

Sunday was sunny and the warmest day we've had in a while-actually above freezing-so I decided to set out to see if I could find any robins. I walked Hilger's Gulch and the play trail, a short circuit around La Framboise and to the river and back on Farm Island. I don't know where the robins are but they weren't in any of those places. I might pop out again Wednesday the next day we are supposed to have a sunny, warmer day. Despite the lack of robins, I did enjoy many birds. 7 grouse along the playtrail Canada geese and assorted ducks, gulls  A single chickadee on La Framboise A bald eagle on Farm Island Waves of purple and house finches (Farm Island) Flocks of starlings (Farm Island) A cardinal calling his pew, pew, pew, pew. (Farm Island) A downy woodpecker (Farm Island) More chickadees (Farm Island) I tried to capture the sound of the birds on Farm Island, particularly the cardinal in this video. I think I might need more specialized recording equi...

I have been using Facebook as a robin journal of sorts, documenting observations (or in this case lack of observations) of robin activity. Last year I shared my  First Seen observation via Journey North but I feel the need to bring it all together in one dedicated place. I will pilot using this journal to see if this fills that need.  

The last few years I have launched Robin Watch, a social media outreach through the SD Discovery Center, on Valentine's Day to encourage people to be more aware of or perhaps hopeful about the arrival of spring. I chose Valentine's Day because Robins have red breasts and red is the color of hearts and Valentine's Day. Birds often start courtship behaviors this time of year. Even Chaucer noted that. I wanted to give teachers a more content rich way to observe the holiday other than a party and requiring kids to give each other Valentine's Day cards. As a kid, I hated Valentine's Day and all the mushy cards and the ensuing cries of disgust boys made at getting a card from me. This year, I expanded the outreach a bit by making it an official event both on Facebook and our website. My outcome assessment will be if we see an increase of activity on the Journey North website. Below is the kick off post.