New School Montessori students get up close with the birds

TNS 4th-level students have been reading the novel, My Side of the Mountain, which features a boy and his peregrine falcon hunting together. The (9-12) teachers planned an educational afternoon where handlers of birds of prey shared interesting facts about owls, falcons, and buzzards. While circling among the students, birds were both in hand and close up.

Students learned that barn owls’ eyes take up 80% of their heads and that owls can’t actually rotate their heads all the way around like the cartoons show–just 270 degrees. Barn owls find their prey mostly with their ears which are off-center from each other helping to better locate the exact location of their prey. They can swoop in from great distances to a slight rustle in the grass that spells disaster for a mouse or lizard. Fringed wing tips that keep their flight more silent.

Fourth graders were thrilled to witness various birds of prey up close and flapping on their gloved hands as each took turns bravely feeding a morsel to a hawk.