The Place-Based Learning Class met on Saturday morning to get to know their new home better. Kate Welsh, our faculty, took us around the downtown for a tour and to get us familiar with Laramie. Not to mention, this was prep for when we get to introduce the 21st Teton Science Schools Graduate Students to Laramie in a few weeks!
On assignment for today's class, Kate had us do some research about Laramie: from presenting information found about many of the really cool murals painted on downtown's buildings to little natural history and cultural history about Laramie.
Of course, mine was: Name five resident and any migratory birds in your area.
Well, theChristyBel still does not know birds really well, at least in the West...so I did some interviewing and asked one of the professors here on campus. I found Matt Carling, a professor in the Zoology and Physiology Department and a few other resources that helped me answer my question.
Resident Birds:
Northern Flicker, Clark's Nutcracker, Horned Lark, Mountain Chickadee, Red-Breasted Nuthatch, Turkey Vulture, Great Horned Own, Eastern Screech Owl, Snipe, Ferruginous Hawk, Golden Eagle, Prairie Falcon, American Coot, Red-Tailed Hawk, & Raven
Migratory Birds:
- Winter Here: Pine Siskins, Townsend Solitaires, Northern Shrike, & Rough-Legged Hawk
- Summer Here: Ruddy Duck, Great Blue Heron, Cooper's Hawk, American Kestrel, Killdeer, Common Nighthawk
Here on the University of Wyoming Campus, the large green areas are the perfect place to spot birds. Turkey Vulture and Great Horned Owls have nests in some of the trees, as well as Red Crossbills are common in the conifers spread throughout campus. When fall and winter come around and many birds start to migrate, the Pine Siskins and Townsend Solitaires are more common, along with many songbirds such as: warblers, flycatchers, sparrows, vireos, and thrushes.
If you go off of campus to Hutton Lake, part of the National Wildlife Refuge, the 1,408 acres of greasewood and grassland and 560 acres of open water and marsh serve as a habitat for a variety of waterfowl during the spring and fall migrations. Wilson’s phalaropes, willets, American avocets, black-necked stilts, black-crowned night herons, eared and pied-billed grebes are common on and near the water. Many raptors migrate and reside over Laramie as well, including Swainson’s Hawks, northern harriers, and golden eagles.
On my way to meet everyone at Coal Creek Coffee, a great local coffee shop on Grand Ave in the Downtown, I spotted one of the residential birds of Laramie. Looks like I don't have to travel far to do some birding here! haha.
TheChristyBel
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| A Fat Northern Flicker Found Outside My Window! |
Works Cited:
Faulkner, D. (2010). Birds of Wyoming. Greenwood Village, Colo.: Roberts and Co..
Laramie Audubon: Laramie Birding Blog
http://laramieaudubon.blogspot.com/p/laramie-birding.html
Hutton Lake National Wildlife Refuge Website:
http://www.fws.gov/refuges/profiles/WildHabitat.cfm?ID=65522
Hello Christie.... Dream Team misses you! Fall returns as the Hawks are flying over Ashland and Gordon has likewise migrated down from the Adirondacks. He leaves for a 3 week trip to Turkey next week. We completed the shed and observable beehive project in early summer and Michele stocked. Was a big success with the kids. Dream Team ripped apart the Ashland library and relocated many of the shelves to offices. Eventualy the walls will be ripped down and it will be turned into a computer lab. We just finished repairing the bridge up by Succession Trail. I was eroding off the bank. We dragged it about 2 feet and rebuilt the supporting beams. Quite a project for us. Glad all seems to be going well for you .
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