Monday the Tiger-Wolves met with Anna and installed their swallow boxes on an irrigation ditch off Dry Creek.  It was exciting to see something we had learned and built this Fall come into fruition. While putting up the boxes we also had the chance to talk with landowners and were even gifted cupcakes as a token of appreciation for our work on this citizen-science project! Over the next month, Tiger-Wolves will head back to the site and monitor the boxes in small groups of five. To prepare for monitoring the boxes we meet Tuesday with  Toby to learn about the life cycle of tree swallows, and how even though the birds are only here for the summer, they go through a lot of the stages of their life cycle because this is their breeding ground.  Tiger-Wolves named the stages of a tree swallow’s life cycle (egg, chick, fledgling, adult) and then played a game to demonstrate how not all eggs make it all the way to adulthood.  We recorded the data from our game and used it to do a few math activities with pie graphs and fractions.

On Monday night I received an urgent call from Friends of the Teton River scientist Anna, she needed our help! I told Anna that I couldn’t say “yes” or “no” to any project without first talking to the Tiger-Wolves. Wednesday, Anna came in and explained to us she needed help with “real science” to monitor Tree Swallow populations in our valley. We learned that scientists from Friends of the Teton River and the University of Idaho are collecting data on Tree Swallow habitat and population as an overall indicator of watershed health in our valley. After much excitement buzzed in the classroom, we found out Anna didn’t just need our help today but ALL year! We learned some of our commitments would be building Tree Swallow habitat (bird boxes), analyzing food (macro-invertebrates), observing the environment and monitor behavior and habitation. It was a unanimous decision, we were in! We started to work right away building bird boxes. Next, Wednesday (weather permitting) we are heading to our Teton River to learn more about the food Tree Swallows eat and what that tells us about water quality. Don’t worry, we haven’t abandoned our Gaper Guide project, we just need to put in some work now to keep learning from the Tree Swallow over the next eight months!