We met the rest of the class at the classroom building for an intro by the fabulous park ranger. She did a great job entertaining a room full of 4-year-olds. Above she's teaching us about beavers. I learned that all chewing animals (beavers, squirrels etc) have orange incisors. We looked at and touched a lot of different skulls.
The ranger also let us "pet" many different animal pelts. A few of the children were a bit unsure about the whole thing, but Nicholas loved it. As did Charlotte, who was pressing forward off my lap to touch everything that went around. That girl loves animals. Apparently even deceased ones.
After the presentation, we drove through the park to find the herds of bison and elk. The bison were right next to the road so we had a great viewing! We learned from the ranger that there is only one male...because they fight if there is more than one. We also learned that they ship off the "babies" to other parks right before the new batch of babies arrive so the herd doesn't get too big. The almost year-old "babies" looked like they were certainly ready to take care of themselves!
When we first saw the elk, they were across the road, high up a hill. Zoomed all the way on my camera I took this picture. Nicholas couldn't even make them out as I was pointing them out since they were so camouflaged in the forest.
We thought that was going to be the best we got, but on our way out of the park, we came upon the rest of the herd, again right next to the road. It was the perfect way to end our field trip.
Our family had taken a drive through this park a year or so ago, but having the presentation by the ranger and seeing both the bison and elk herds up close was really special!
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