Lincoln Avenue Students Go Bird Watching

At the early student catches (sight of) the… bird.

Thanks to the Birding Buddies Program, four Sayville Seniors from AP Environmental Science (Erin Keenan, Kathreen Mangaluz, Lindsey Lyons and Alexis Sermier), along with their teacher Sonja Anderson, met with 25 Lincoln Avenue third-graders to bird-watch in the annual Audobon Society’s Great Backyard Bird Count event.

The four-day Great Backyard Bird Count event involves “bird watchers of all ages in counting birds to create a real-time snapshot of where the birds are across the continent. Anyone can participate, from beginning bird watchers to experts.”

On the designated cold morning, third-graders arrived early at Lincoln to meet with the AP Environmental Science students. Overlooking the Lincoln Avenue Courtyard, from the warm interior of the hall, the students viewed and identified several different species common to backyards: sparrows, finches, starlings, and a few others. 

With the help of the seniors, the third-grade students also recorded weather data, quantified their data, counted and identified species using bird identification guides and binoculars.

True to the meaning of the Early Bird/Worm proverb, success came to those students who were indeed well prepared and had put in effort.