Last Friday, fifth-grade students from Pagosa Springs Middle School (PSMS) gathered at Mary Fisher Park at the base of Reservoir Hill to spend a day in the field rotating through activities representative of different natural resource careers.
What has historically been scheduled for the Great Backyard Bird Count in February, when snow is typically readily abundant (even at lower elevations), was postponed due to scheduling complications.
Thus, this year’s “Science on Snow” was a late March reframe and featured new station activities in addition to the tradition of birding along the San Juan Riverwalk.
Thanks to U.S. Forest Service personnel Adam Tlachac, Hannah Friedrichsen, Adriana Palomar, Smokey Bear and others, the students were able to become familiar with forester’s tools, measuring tree diameters and heights, and discuss wildfire ecology and the associated tools and actions required to manage a forest.
Further, PSMS Principal Chris Hinger was delighted to trade his administrative cap and get back into the field with students, teaching a lesson on the geology of downtown Pagosa Springs.
And volunteers from the Weminuche Audubon Society (WAS) led students on birding routes along the downtown river and wetlands, effectively creating a snapshot of bird species found between 1st Street on the northeast end all the way down to Apache Bridge on the southwest end. WAS volunteers included Ben Bailey, Kay Kaylor, Charles Martinez, Josh Pike and Jean Zirnhelt. The students were also delighted to bird with their science teacher, Chris Couch.
Collectively, students identified and logged 33 species of birds along the Riverwalk and adjacent neighborhoods.
This species list has been uploaded to eBird, a global community science platform, which helps to inform scientists on bird populations.
Some exciting sights from the day included a female red crossbill (females exhibit near-yellow coloration) extracting seeds from spruce cones next to Hot Spring Boulevard bridge, a sharp-shinned hawk, a couple of Lincoln’s sparrows noted near the Geothermal Greenhouse Partnership site, a number of cinnamon teal stopping over at the Ross Aragon Community Center ponds en route to breeding grounds north, and other early migrants such as mountain bluebirds, a Say’s phoebe and a turkey vulture, indicating that spring is indeed here.
One group even got to witness a sly fox working the perimeter of the wetland ponds, looking to investigate already-active goose nests.
It is by exposing students to these salient, observational experiences in nature that can light sparks of interest for the future, and open a door into different career opportunities in the natural resources field.
