When our class went to Sunnyside Pond in October, 1997, we saw a GREAT BLUE HERON standing very still beside the water. It was looking for fish in the water.
We walked as quietly as we could down the path to Sunnyside Park so we could watch this bird.
GREAT BLUE HERONS are shy birds and when the heron at Sunnyside Pond realized we were coming, it flew up and away.
It was exciting to see this huge water bird!
The GREAT BLUE HERON is about 4 feet tall.
It has a really long neck and very thin legs.
It likes to eat fish and uses its beak to catch them in the shallow water.
When we were walking back from the pond, we saw a friend, Ms. McCloskey, who lives in our school neighborhood and who knows alot about the pond and the herons.
We told her we had just seen the heron and she was so glad to hear it was back at the pond!
She said, "I've seen it some other years but I thought it was gone."
She told us that sometimes it flies up into the tallest pine trees and makes its nest on the top of pine trees.
She said that the best time of day to see the heron is early in the morning.
When we got back to our classroom, we wrote email messages on the computers about seeing the GREAT BLUE HERON.
We sent our email messages to school friends who study water habitats with us in Puerto Rico, Russia, and Netherlands.
Here are some of the messages they sent back to us when we wrote to them about the GREAT BLUE HERON.
"Great Blue Heron
- it's wonderful! I have never seen blue herons. I have read
about the blue heron in a book. It is a very interesting
book! It is about and English girl with w blue heron.
" "Your Sunnyside
Pond is fantastic! Can you write about it in winter? Is it
cold in winter? Is there ice on Sunnyside
Pond?" "We have no ponds
near us. There is only the Obskole Sea near us. It is very
beautiful in summer! And in winter too - it's all covered by
the ice. the ice on the Obskoje Sea is just as a great
mirror. And the ice is covered by think snow
cover." "I have seen a
pond in Simferopol, Crimea. I was there with my family this
summer. There were in the pond: 6 ducks and 5 swans. And
there were two pelicans!!! They had big bags in their beaks.
Have you ever seen pelicans? It's very exciting! Have you a
map at school? Crimea is at the Black Sea. And Novosibirsk
is in Siberia. " From Ann, Age
9
"In Puerto Rico
we mostly have rivers and oceans. You can see seagulls and a
bird we call over here 'garzas'. The water is never frozen,
but it may get cold. In these waters there are many animals.
There are fishes, alligators, crabs and some other animals.
That is mostly what I know about our water habitats. If you
need more information tell me." "It is nice
hearing from you." From Diana, Age
12
"Thank you for
your email. We have some water habitats near us. We have a
small river called the AA. It's a very small
stream." "The big river is
called the Maas. It is starting in France and ends in our
country in the sea." "The big lake is
called IJsselmeer and is about 60 miles from here. Ten years
ago it was called the Zuiderzee." "Our sea is
called the Noordzee and is about 80 miles from our house. We
have some birds in our lakes. They're called: Aalscholver
(cormoront), Blauwe reiger (Blue riger). They are our water
birds. From Jeffrey,
Alex, Paul, and PaaYaw
Our class read books to learn more about GREAT BLUE HERONS. Here are some of the books we used:
Watching Water Birds by Jim Arnosky (National Geographic Society, Washington, D.C. 1997)
Signs Along the River:Learning to Read the Natural Landscape by Kayo Robertson (Roberts Rinehart, Inc. Publishers, 1986)
Everybody's Everywhere Backyard Bird Book (Klutz Press, Palo ALto, CA 1992)
Peterson First Guides: Birds by Roger Tory Peterson (Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1986)
National Audubon Society First Field Guide to Birds (Scholastic Inc. New York, 1998)
We did a presentation for our parents and other Sunnyside School classes about GREAT BLUE HERONS. We read poems and information about this bird that we learned from books.
We made
water color paintings of GREAT
BLUE
HERONS.
Here are some of our
paintings.
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