Bird is the word
By Kirsten Ballard
Published in News on July 7, 2015 1:46 PM
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Park Pals Madison Kiefer, 4, Kayla Kiefer, 6, and Preston Hatch, 6, use teamwork to gather a large piece of wood while making a human-sized bird's nest during the program at Cliffs of the Neuse State Park on Monday.
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News-Argus/MELISSA KEY
Park Pals Ella Sullivan, 5, and Cole Randolph discuss which type of bird they think would eat nuts and what kind of beak it might have during an interactive exercise at the program at Cliffs of the Neuse on Monday. The Park Pals program teaches children about nature.
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News-Argus/MELISSA KEY
Madison Kiefer, 4, smiles as she shows a friend her progress on making a bird's nest out of a Twizler during snack time at the Cliffs of the Neuse Park Pals program on Monday.
There is a special nest at Cliffs of the Neuse State Park.
It's a family-sized nest -- one that was painstakingly assembled with large sticks, branches, leaves and grass.
But birds did not build the home, Park Ranger Autumn Kahl said.
It was the creation of seven "Park Pals."
The campers, ages 5 through 8, spend two hours every Monday at Cliffs of the Neuse learning about nature.
And Monday's lesson was birds.
So during outdoor activity time, Kahl had them work together to build a nest.
She explained that the outside of the nest needed to be made strong, to withstand wind, and the inside should be soft, to protect the eggs. And it had to be big enough to hold one person.
Instead, it held seven.
"That's so, so, so, so big," said 6-year-old Kayla Kiefer. "That was quite the workout."
The Park Pals program is hosted by Cliffs of the Neuse and runs through the end of July.
Kahl supervises, and answers the most popular question.
"Why?"
Why do the birds have to compete for food?
Why build a nest with sticks?
Why did you give me this Twizzler?
But she has an answer for all of them -- hoping to connect the children to the park, and to nature.
"We learn lots about nature," Kayla said. "Yup. I love it."
Kahl brought the Park Pals with her from her previous job in Maryland. She finds activities in books, online and from her own imagination. So far, the children have learned about amphibians, water quality and this week was all about birds.
During the bird lesson, she taught the children about different beaks, nest-making, and food-gathering habits of birds.
"We learned that the mommy and daddy do need to help take care of the baby birds," Rachel Sutton, 7, explained.
Kahl demonstrated the power of teamwork when she had the children work in pairs to feed their birds. Using a straw, the children picked up water into the tube and "regurgitated" it back into a cup.
During snack time, the children played with their food.
"Snack incorporates what they learned about that day," Kahl said.
During the bird lesson, the children were given Twizzlers that they peeled apart and woven into nests.
"That's really hard," Kayla said.
But Kahl encouraged her to try.
Slowly, in and out, up and down, the nests began to take form.
But they didn't last long.
After all that nest building, there were some very hungry campers.