As I walked past "Troll Bridge", I caught sight of this Columbia ground squirrel.

Quote by: SMW

As I walked past "Troll Bridge", I caught sight of this Columbia ground squirrel.

Troll Bridge ??? Is that what it's called ? I never quite thought of giving it a name but now that you've mentioned it Troll Bridge does seem appropriate.

Suddenly all the birds nearby scattered and there was a bald eagle circling overhead. A crow moved in for the attack, and the eagle flew off. I'm assuming that the crow was protecting a mate or possibly even its young? The eagle seemed to be looking for its lunch as it flew towards the far shore. After several sweeps around the Parkland side of the lake, the eagle hovered close to the surface in a sheltered bay, as if looking for prey. Without binoculars I couldn't be sure whether it managed to catch anything. Then it flew off towards the tall cottonwoods on the eastern shore, close to where we had seen it on our Thursday field trip.

Hi Judy,

I guess you've never come on a field trip with us to Elizabeth Lake. Whenever we reach this bridge on our first visit of the year, I usually tell the children that this is Troll Bridge. This never fails to capture their imagination, and each time they cross afterwards, they often stop to look around carefully before crossing.

I called in at the St. Eugene Mission to check up on the ospreys, and was just in time to catch this one take off from its perch high on a tree. I counted four ospreys and noticed that there were at least two new nests close to the road. You may want to check out our field trip here in June, 2010 @ 2009/2010 Gordon Terrace Elementary - Saturday, June 26 2010.

I also noted that there were seven heron nests, presumably last year's. After looking up "Herons" in A Field Guide to Western Birds, I discovered that they winter in the N. of South America. I'm assuming that they have still to return.

During Circle Time this morning, we learned that Paul, Caleb, Isaiah and Liam all made visits to Elizabeth Lake to check up on the pussy willows we planted last week.

This afternoon we went to Joseph Creek by the Tamarack Mall to do a clean up with our grade 6 buddies as part of Pitch In. We found a lawn mower, tire, concrete bird bath, coffee cups, plastic bags and lots more. Afterwards we each enjoyed a bag of popcorn and juice supplied by the Mall.