By Jess Garby, Education Coordinator
It’s been a very bittersweet month for me, as I wrapped up teaching the Birds of Northwest Montana FVCC Senior Institute class. The final three classes were extraordinary. Rob Domenech, the Founder of Raptor View Research Institute, and I co-presented a lecture on identifying raptors found here in the Fathead Valley, teaching the students the many nuances of in-flight identification. This was followed by local native plant expert Kathy Ross, who provided a plethora of planting resources, as well as native milkweed seeds for students to plant at home. For our final class we ventured to Church Slough, where Ronda Howell, Linda Du Lac, and I gave one final lesson on waterfowl identification. I was so excited to see my students with binoculars up to their eyes, experiencing the beauty of birds we spent weeks discussing. While there, I decided to give my students one last quiz: use the terminology and skills taught in class to describe to me what species they were observing through the spotting scope. Most of them excelled at this, and they were as proud of themselves as I was! To my surprise, a handful of my students have since joined FAS on multiple field trips. As we caravanned back to FVCC campus, I reflected on the past six weeks with gratitude and looked forward to teaching at FVCC again next spring.
Flathead Audubon’s K-12 programming blossomed this month, as we reached 240 students and six schools through in-classroom programming and field trips. Some highlights included partnering with Flathead Land Trust to lead students from Two Eagles River school on a raptor-focused field trip in Pablo; and teaching Hedges Elementary first and second-grade students about the fun traits and behaviors birds have. Watching the students’ eyes light up as they learned about bird characteristics was incredibly rewarding.
I’m excited to share I’ve recently begun teaching at Columbia Falls and Whitefish schools that are new to Flathead Audubon’s education outreach program. In early April, I had the honor of speaking to a Field Ecology class based out of Columbia Falls High School about different methods of studying birds in the field. The following week, I took 20 of those students to Owen Sowerwine for an immersive four-hour field day, where we collected information on the different habitats and performed four different point counts. Each student found something they love about birds, whether it was practicing their turkey calls for hunting season, or admiring the Northern Flickers calling around us.
I look forward to reporting back again in September. Until then, Happy Birding!
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