One of our favorite parks is Germantown because of the trails, nature center, and the Twin Valley Backpacking trail which connects the Germantown and Twin Valley trails. But, back to Germantown.
As we stepped into the nature center we were immediately greeted by Emily who invited us to join the bird banding program going on in the next room.
A mist net (extremely fine net designed to capture birds without harming them) was set up outside near the feeders and as birds (chick-a-dees, nuthatches, downy woodpeckers, etc.) were caught biologists were retrieving them from the fine net, placing them in a mess bag and bringing them into the center for processing.
The biologist then took the bird out of the mesh bag, inspected it, took measurements, determined the sex, age, and then gently stuffed the bird head first into a cardboard tube with one end closed and took the birds weight. If the bird didn’t have a leg band, it soon got one.
The kids were completely absorbed in this process. Yet as I looked around the room, I noticed there were only two other kids there and they were older than mine. I wondered where are all the other kids? Are they still sleeping, watching television, or playing video games.