“I have never in my whole life seen the birds that I saw, like a blue jay and yellow warbler”
“Our field trip was the best thing I’ve ever been to.” “I like how you put the bird in a tube to see how much it weighs.” “People who band birds are cool.”
These are a few of the comments from 5th graders from a Marshall middle school after visiting the Grand Pass Monitoring Station this May. Dana Ripper, director of the Missouri River Bird Observatory (link to MROB website), and her staff treated the kids to a fun and fact-packed experience that included banding demonstrations, bird identification, information on bird habitats, and games about bird migration.
Foundation support helped bring the fifth graders to the station and also paid for a biology intern from Missouri Valley College.