Mr. Ritter and I led a small group bird count on the high school campus one Friday morning where we found a total of 15 species and 204 total birds!
Many other students elected to participate on their own, in local parks or in their own backyards. Some of my freshmen were even able to make it over to the Helen C Fenske Visitor Center in the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge. The friendly volunteers and experts from the Friends of the Great Swamp assisted them in viewing and identifying the birds.
I also had an opportunity to make it over to the visitor center and I was able to see the data they had collected over the weekend. A quick analysis of biodiversity using the Shannon Index demonstrated that our SPFHS campus actually managed to just edge out the visitor center, which is pretty incredible!
