As is almost always the case when things happen on short notice, our first Summer Community Program (which was officially announced 3 days before the opening night…) had us running around like chickens with our heads cut off up until the point people arrived. Then as if someone turned a switch all the chaos and energy that goes into putting a program together last minute merged and synced into a pleasant hum. We have lift off.
The purpose of our first community program was to introduce people to owls and their amazing adaptations that allow them to be successful nocturnal creatures. To our delight, we had a fantastic turnout with 42 people in attendance. To our amazement, some members of the audience had come from as far away as Missouri, Colorado, and even Texas! When asked if they had come all the way up just for our presentation, they said no. They were up visiting family members on the lake, but I still like to think that we had a little bit to do with them coming all this way…
It was a great night. Audience members were introduced to why owls are so alluring whether it be for their sage Tootsie Pop wisdom, their silly peculiar nature as in James T. Fields poem The Owl, or their sometimes spooky association with scary stories and the dark; owls are culturally ubiquitous.
Before long we were outside enjoying the soft evening light illuminate smiles on the children’s faces as they tried their best to be sneaky like an owl in a game called “Sneaky Owls Need to Trick Jake to Eat the Baby Opossum in the Middle of the Circle” (other popular names for the same game include a much simpler, “Owl/Opossum”)
With all our trickster owl children stuffed on Opossum, we headed out on the trail to try our luck at rounding up some owls on Au Sable’s campus. Having hid taxidermied Snowy, Barred, and Great Horned Owls at various spots along the trail beforehand, participants had to use their owl eyes to locate the inconspicuous (with the exception of the snowy owl, it’s frustratingly difficult to hide a white owl in the summer…) raptors during the hike. Alas, participants did a great job and with each sighting we were able to look at the owl up close and talk about the adaptations and habits of each individual bird.
As the evening wound down, we retired to the dining hall to fill our bellies with cookies, coffee, and lemonade. It was the end of a great night and the beginning of a fun stretch of Thursday evening community programs we will be hosting most of the month. Next up at 7pm on Thursday, July 14th we will be learning how to read the landscape. Join us again for an exciting time out on the trails learning how to decipher the story being told by the plants and animals all around us. We hope to see you there!
