Life in Brazil (by Sebastian)

I am in the state of Minas Gerias in Brazil. It is super hot. The temperature in the shade is usually 30 degrees celsius, and in the sun, it has been as hot as 42! I thought 25 was hot in Vancouver. It has been very dry, and just after we arrived, there was a brush fire that my family helped to put out with branches.

It is a hard life here, and I wonder how my dad survived. I miss Canada, and our comfy couch. But, Brazil is like a candy store. My favourites are doce de leite, puddim do leite, and biscoito (leite is Portuguese for milk).

There are weird bugs here, called cigarra, that make loud humming noises. There are a lot of flying termites at night. I hate it when they fly in my dinner. We are on a farm and there are chickens, chicks, dogs, cats, and kittens.

The photos you see are of the fire and the kittens who live in the outdour biscuit oven.

O.W.L Visits V. L. N.

V. L. N. students thoroughly enjoyed a presentation given by the Orphanwd Wildlife Rehabilitation Society (O.W.L.) which included an onsite, face to face visit with two birds of prey---a falcon and a barred owl. Carrie, from O. W. L., shared a great deal of interesting information with us and brought in various other items of interest which included a mouse skeleton retrieved from an owl pellet, tallons from a barred owl and a skeletal head of a barred owl. Those of you who attended were probably as surprised as I to learn that a barred owl has up to 10,000 feathers!

We covered a great deal of information, some of which included answers to the following:

-why owls are difficult to see during the day

-why people should not litter on or near a highway

-what an owl pellet is and what may be inside one

-what nocturnal means
-what tallons are used for

-how beaks are used

It was a fascinating session!

Those of you who attended, please write one interesting fact that you learned about the birds of prey in the comment section. Those of you who were unable to attend, check out the following site for information on a few birds of prey and then contribute one fact to the comment section.

http://www.bczoo.org/birdsofprey.htm