Nature Day

We spent most of Saturday afternoon at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, which is maybe 3 miles away from us in a straight line distance but 10 miles by road. They were having their annual Wildlife Festival. It was a very interesting day. There were crafts, face painting, and games for the kids. Wonderboy especially enjoyed the animal obstacle course, where he had to balance like a squirrel, hit a target using senses other than his eyes (toss a bean bag over his shoulder into a bucket), leap from "lily pad" to lily pad like a frog, and move a heavy load like an ant.

Beanbag toss

Ant

wolf boy

We got to take a tour that is offered only one day a year to members of the general public. PWRC hosts a breeding center for endangered whooping cranes. The birds are bred in captivity, incubated by sandhill cranes, then are taught to follow an ultralite so they can then learn how to migrate, with the aim of releasing them into the wild. Tourists were confined to a tour bus (1) to control us, (2) to protect the birds from disease, and (3) to prevent the birds from seeing a human face and form. They want these birds to be as wild as possible. So, the crane handlers dress up in these funny looking costumes when they interact with the birds that will not be kept captive:

Crane Man

The guy to the left of the crane scientist is a biologist who specializes in studying contaminants and pollution in the wild. He's one of the guys who helped figure out that DDT wasn't such a great thing after all.

I didn't get any crane pictures because we were kept at a distance from them, and they were behind protective fences. You can see some if you click on the link above.

The wildlife refuge/research center land had all been farm land, plantation land mostly, and some of Ft Meade's training ground before it was all turned over to become a wildlife refuge and research center. They have a little over 12000 acres of land devoted to refuge and research of wild animals. This house was one of the Snowden family houses. It was built in the 1600s of brick used as ballast in English merchant ships come to haul back tobacco from the Americas. It was of particular interest to me because it turns out that my father's-father's family lived around this neck of the woods in the 1860s, maybe two miles away from this house. I don't think they were related to the Snowden's, but you never know. They probably knew about this place, maybe even saw it or worked there. You never ever know.

I also found out that one of the biggest heron rookeries in the state, maybe on the East Coast, is very close to my house, hidden away in a nature preserve adjacent to the wildlife center's northern tract. No wonder I see them flying over my house all the time! I just didn't know where they were flying to/from. I owe this new knowledge to the scientist who helped the kids go through the obstacle course (the guy in the blue sweatshire and ball cap in one of the photos.)