OLD LYME — With tweezers, toothpicks, tweezers, chopsticks, sieves and tongue depressors, a group of campers called Eleduls worked Wednesday morning, testing which tool was most effective at picking up grains of rice the size of ants, small sponges representing fish, and leaves from plants floating in water
Insects, fish and plants are three types of food that birds eat and the tools represented bird beaks in different shapes and sizes.
Which beak has the advantage over others for each food source? What types of beaks belong to birds that eat each type of food?
These were questions the Nesters, a group of 5- to 7-year-olds at Ecology Camp at the Roger Tory Peterson Estuary Center, pondered as they experimented with how each tool worked and how much food it could or could not take.
Camp counselor Morgan Allen gathered the group to ask which tools matched the beaks of three birds – a warbler, a duck and a blue heron – displayed as photographs on an easel.
For the warbler, she held up the sieve, then the tongs, and then the chopstick – all three were voted against the campers. When she raised the tweezers, the Elneduls gave the thumbs up.
“This is our black and white warbler and what do they eat?” Allen asked. “What was on the tray on the table?”
“Bugs!” answered the Emergents.
“Yes, this bird eats bugs with this beak,” Allen said, hanging the tweezers next to the warbler photo.
The campers identified the tongs as the best tool for catching fish and compared the shape of the tongs to the bill of the blue heron that eats fish. They found that the sieve was the most efficient tool for taking aquatic plants and matched it to the duck’s bill, which has a diet of aquatic plants.
Across the lawn, camp counselor Sophia Alano talked to the Falcons, a group of 8- to 10-year-old campers, about how birds’ beaks are adapted to eat different foods.
For example, she said, hummingbirds have a thin, straw-like beak to extract nectar from flowers.
“But, a hummingbird certainly couldn’t eat a fish,” she said.
The Falcons worked on experiments with the same types of tools as the Elneduls, but added timed experiments showing how many pieces of food each tool could take in a 30-second period, and noted their data for later discussion.
“Think big and question often”
Heather Kordula, education program manager for the estuary center, said the activities at Ecology Camp were designed to be tactile and visual — in this case, with the tool easily matching the type of bird’s beak. See the article : Go fishing: Danish scientists work on fungus-based seafood substitute.
She said this week’s theme was “Super Scientists!” and explored in the “ologies” of biology, ecology, ornithology, hydrology, and more, with campers looking at plant and animal adaptations as well as water and soil quality.
The activities are designed to be student-centered, said Kordula who creates the curriculum.
“It’s based on what I see the campers’ interests drift to. Like if I see that friends are really into insects, we try to do something about insects. If kids are really into birds, we try to direct the activities to that ,” she said. “Because if they’re excited to learn about it, then they’re going to be more engaged and happy with us kind of like, ‘This is what we think you should learn.'”
Alisha Milardo, director of the estuary center, which is part of the Connecticut Audubon Society, said all the activities are created to give children a chance to explore and try new ideas.
“Our students come from all over southeastern Connecticut with diverse backgrounds, cultures and dreams,” Milardo said. “The campers have an opportunity to maybe discover a new skill, find a different purpose, something that’s exciting for them that they might not have during the academic year — and here, during the summer, they have that opportunity and that skill.”
Milardo said the estuary center also offers activities and programs year-round — at school, after school and after school.
“Heather makes sure that in every activity they think, they enjoy, but they think twice, they question it again, as they learn. That’s a really important part of our camp — thinking big and asking questions often,” Milardo said.
Bird beaks, foods and habitats
At the end of the activity, it was time for lunch. On the same subject : BirdNET app powered by AI makes citizen science easier Cornell Chronicle. Students grabbed their lunch boxes and stretched out under the shade of a tree.
Teddy, a Falcon who is nine, summarized the morning’s experiment.
“We learned that different bird have different beaks for many different foods,” she said. “Like, say a hummingbird is trying to catch a fish, they won’t be able to catch it because their [beak] is meant for nectar.”
Austin, also nine and Falcon, said he learned that birds need certain beaks to live in particular habitats.
“You also need a certain beak to get fish, you also need a certain beak to collect leaves and sometimes you need a certain beak to get grubs like a woodpecker.”
To catch fish, Austin said a bird needs a “long sharp open” type of beak, with a broad action similar to the way pincers open and close.
“And for the leaves, you would need something like the [sieve] to get them out. You can just take it under the leaves.”
For bugs and grubs, he said a thin beak — like the tweezers — is best, so the bird can “poke into the wood and grab.”
