The Naturalist Notebook

This past weekend, we celebrated our country’s independence at Fourth Fest in State College. It was filled with fireworks, enormous flags, a sense of patriotism, and, of course, some of Shaver’s Creek’s finest of birds and reptiles. We had tons of friendly visitors excited to see, learn, and talk about our animals. If you couldn’t…

With Shaver’s Creek’s awesome camps, exciting raptor center, and wonderful meandering trails, one never has to look too hard to find work that needs doing. We interns have been creating and executing games, lessons, and crafts for the camp groups, caring for the birds of prey, and maintaining trails for the trail steward competition. I…

This Tuesday marked the start of 2010’s first week of the Discovery and Explorer camps at Shaver’s Creek! This summer, the Discovery Campers (aged 6-8) will be focusing on learning about insects, while the Explorer campers (aged 9-11) will be learning about amphibians. During the Discovery and Explorer camps, campers are given the opportunity to…

My son Ellory visited Shaver’s Creek today, and we took a walk in the woods to find out what the summer campers were up to. Along the way we heard Scarlet Tanager, Ovenbird, Black-throated Green Warbler and Red-eyed Vireo singing. When we caught up to the campers, they were ankle deep in Shaver’s Creek staying…

On June 16th, Shaver’s Creek played host to state FFA Forestry and Aquatic Resource Contests. See the full gallery on Posterous

Elise, Johanna, and I had the pleasure of doing a BoP show at the State College High School’s annual Renaissance Faire on Monday, May 24. This show, however, was not your typical BoP program. First of all, the requested program was on renaissance falconry. Now, our birds are not capable of falconry, but we were…

See the full gallery on Posterous

Wishing our departing intern staff the best of luck on their future endeavors.  Pictured clockwise from top left are the spring 2010 interns; Alyssa Thiel, Elizabeth McMahon, Lauren Seiler, Lisa Scarbrough, Lauren Chain, Daniel Hontz, Jordan Aoyama, and Elise Hagenberger. 

The spring interns were hard at work in their final week at Shaver’s Creek; backpacking, teaching, and practicing animal handling. Pictured are: 1) (clockwise) Lauren Chain, Ryan Elliot, Ashley Williams, Lauren Seiler, Alyssa Thiel, and Lisa Scarbrough at the start of their backpacking course over Memorial Day weekend.  The interns (and friends) hiked and camped…

I’m glad to report that we’ve restocked the shelves of our bookstore with 10 more autographed copies of Nick Bolgiano and Greg Grove’s Birds of Central Pennsylvania, after the first 10 sold in a flash. The book includes wonderful descriptions, maps, graphics and species accounts of the best birding around these parts! You can also…