[Still off the grid, but I’ll be back next week!]
Wow, did I have a loony summer. That’s because Yvonne Pearson (author of Little Loon Finds His Voice) and I teamed up for 14 Minnesota storytimes about loons. FOURTEEN! Whee! Here’s a quick photo gallery, and I want to give big thanks to Yvonne, Cortney Walbridge, and all the librarians of East Central Regional Library.
And to get even more loony, I’m excited to announce that I have another loon picture book coming out in the spring. Finding Family (Lerner Books, spring 2023) shares the true story of a pair of loons who adopted a mallard duckling in northern Wisconsin a few years ago—an extremely rare occurrence! Can’t wait to share more about it in the coming days.
Now, want to learn more about birds with your students? Check out these very cool resources from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology!
- Merlin app, which analyzes bird vocalizations near you and tells you what bird is likely making the noise! As someone who knows NO bird calls (other than loons, I mean), I’m excited to start recognizing some of them. And then I know what bird to look for as I survey the trees around. Whee!
- BirdCast Migration Dashboard – Just look up your county for estimated of how many birds migrated through your area last night! As I write this, an estimated 452,000 birds migrated through my Minnesota county last night! That’s astonishing. And they give more info, too, on likely types of birds, etc.
[My Classroom Connections posts share a way to connect one of my books or poems to a classroom topic–often something timely that you might be covering in the next month or so. Please share this post if you have educator friends who might be interested–thanks!]