Fish Hatchery

Today we visited a fish hatchery. Thousands of fish are bred and released to stock lakes and rivers all over Pennsylvania. Also, we discussed how the hatchery's receive no funding from the state and make all their money from selling fish senescence. Unfortunately, this has caused most hatcheries to close.

On Sunday,  July 27th, we went to the Wooden Nickel Buffalo Farm.
There we learned a lot about buffalos.
This animals live only in america and can weight 2000 pounds. They can run about 45 miles pro hour.
In Europe live also a kind of bison, called european bison. But this buffalo isn't as big as the amerikan one.
The information was really interesting.
After listening to Edinboro, we were able to eat a burger with bison meat!!!
This was delicious.

Casey's

Sunday afternoon after a meal at the buffalo's farm, we drove back to Allegheny College in the most severe thunderstorm German people have ever seen in America. Everybody was tired mostly due to the uncomfortable weather or the limited space in the two vans instead of three, we have gotten used to. There was no improvement in sight until the vans reached Casey's, Meadville's local ice cream store. Having put on our raincoats, we rushed into the sacred place, smelling the tasteful flavors already several feet away. Inside, we got to choose from various kinds of ice cream which was a hard choice to make. Some of the outstanding flavors were Meadville Mud, which incorporates simply every kind of chocolate you can even think of, Oreo (for the cookie's lovers) or Frog, which has nothing to do with the amphibian we find in the creek. Some odd ice cream were for example Hanna Banana, which had such a bright yellow color that I had to blink several times until finally registering it fully, or Cotton Candy, which might have got A LITTLE BIT of blue artificial color. Moreover, a nice alteration to the cake cones, one is used to, Casey's offers sugar cones and even provides homemade waffle cones.
All in all, although it had got cold outside, I think everybody enjoyed the sweet and sugary refreshment.
The weather did not get any better, but at least the Crew arrived at the college with a smile.

Pymatunig Spillway

Today we went to the Pymatunig Spillway to feed the birds and fishes. There were hundreds, possibly even thousands of fish gathered at Pymatunig to be fed bread by people. Many gathered to throw bread and watch the fish and birds contend for the food. In a
sense, it was natural selection at its finest.

The little Bluebirds

On Thursday after lunch, we got a wonderful and really inspiring presentation from Harry Schmeider about Bluebirds, who likes them a lot! As a small child, he began to love the nature and enjoyed watching birds, as he told us. At first he started explaining us the 3 different kinds of the American Bluebird – the Mountain, the Western, and the Eastern Bluebirds. He especially said a lot of facts about the Eastern Bluebird (Sialia sialis).It lives in the Pennsylvania region and has a red back, a red chest, and a white stomach. The top of many interesting facts was the “Bluebird-dance” (which Harry tried to show us ;) ). It was so funny! This dance is made by the male birds to call the attention of their ‘own birdhouse’ for the female birds. If this dance was successful the female birds start to build the nests into the birdhouses which they choose. This house has to be safe against raccoons and other animals, therefore the predator guard was invented. Through this safety the small family can grow up and become a big one from 7 up to 9 members. But Harry didn’t just teach us details about Eastern Bluebirds, his biggest wish was that we learned how to treasure the nature.                                                                             

So in the end it was an impressive speech about the little Bluebirds. I think we all had great fun!
 

The different eggs of the Bluebirds

The Birdhouse with the predator guard

Harry and us

Jennings...

On Friday, the 25th of July, we went to the Jennings Environmental Education Center.
It is one of several state parks specifically dedicated to providing environmental education and interpretation to the community. A variety of programs that increase knowledge and awareness of the beauty and importance of our natural resources are available for children, teachers and the general public. Prairies are extremely rare in Pennsylvania. They are usually found further to the West and across the Midwest. The prairie at Jennings Environmental Education Center is the only protected prairie ecosystem in Pennsylvania.

 

           Miranda Crotsley

Miranda Crotsley teaching us how to catch and measure a venomous snake

FISHIES!!

Fishing was really adventurous because there were a some people that we had to teach how.  There were a few people that wouldn't touch the worms that we used for bait so they had to have others put it on the hook. We also had fish steal our bait right off the hooks.We had very little luck in the beginning but in the end we caught a few along with a few bushes and trees.