Naomi Curland

I researched the Great Blue Heron and the Prairie Dog. 

I learned that Great Blue Herons are incredibly adaptable, and live near lakes and wetlands across all of north and central America, and their nesting area is called a heronry. The only predator that consistently hunts them as full grown adults is the Bald Eagle, because grown herons fight back with their sharp bills. 

I learned a lot about Prairie Dog family structures and breeding. I learned they mate underground, and they have nurseries in the deeper more remote parts of their burrows where they raise the young until they're about 5 months old, which is why you never see baby prairie dogs, just juveniles and adults. I also learned that they're particularly susceptible to Bubonic Plague, and it can wipe out whole colonies, but there are vaccines that have been air dropped on at-risk colonies to inoculate them against the disease. 

Picking up trash today was very interesting, because it's easy to feel disconnected with your community right now, in the age of social distancing and face masks. Picking up my neighbors' trash felt surprisingly intimate. I picked up a straw, and a cloth handkerchief, both of which had touched another person's mouth, and could have been contaminated by the dreaded COVID-19. It felt like a higher form of service than the other pieces of trash I picked up, while also feeling more connected to the people who had dropped them.