Pineview Elementary 2022 Wrap-up

by Donna Legare

After nearly two years of not meeting due to the pandemic, Our AAS volunteers resumed leading the Pineview Elementary After-school Bird Club in January of this year. For the last session, the 12 third grade students in the club learned about bird nesting. The children looked at a projection of an osprey nest and then looked at three previously used nests that had been removed from bird houses during general maintenance. They noted and discussed the differences between materials used by bluebirds, chickadees, and Carolina Wrens. They also described the American Robin's nest that they watched during the last session, when they were fortunate to watch a robin carrying a worm to its nestlings. The nest was attached to a light fixture on one of the school buildings.

After examining the real nests, the students zipped around a section of the campus dominated by oaks and pines. They collected natural materials and wove them into nests, seen in the photographs below.

Volunteer Betsy Sullivan ended the session by teaching them about the strength of eggs and demonstrated this by sitting a chicken egg, propped up by a liter soda bottle top, on the sidewalk and then piled heavy encyclopedias on top of the egg, adding one by one until there were 4 before the egg burst. The students loved it!

Thanks to our volunteers who worked with the Bird Club this year – Betsy Sullivan, David Arnold, Donna Legare, Robin Will, Marney Richards, Peter Kleinhenz, Dara Miles-Wilson, and our FANTASTIC FAMU intern Cierra Nelson.