national zoo | Smithsonian Conservation Education Internship

Talk about a busy week! This was my first weekend off, so I didn’t have to spend the week preparing for the campout (which was a nice change of pace). My week kicked off with banding Purple Martins. We had lost some nestlings because a snake got in the nest box but we still had enough to band. The banding process was pretty easy, there were 10 of us so we had people that took the birds out of the boxes, runners, a weigher, and banders. I helped the people banding by reading the numbers on the bands and loading them into the clamps. It was really fun and we got all of the nestlings banded in about 3 hours. Each bird gets two bands, one is orange and is the federal band, the other is purple which is the state band.

This week I also helped out with the day camp. The camp is for 5-8 graders and they spend the day here hiking, doing activities, and getting lectures from researchers. I helped three days, in which I gave a tour of the facility, lead an activity about stream macroinvertebrates, and supervised a group during the geo-cash game. It was super fun working the day camp and some of them even wrote me thank you notes!!

Thursday I went to the National Zoo in DC to pick up vans for the overnight camp that coming up. The other people I went with had to sit in an orientation meeting so during that time I got to walk around the zoo. It was the first time I had even been there and it was awesome! I only had a few hours so I didn’t get to see everything, looks like I will have to make another trip back! While there the group of us got a behind the scenes tour of the Reptile House which was phenomenal. It was nice to see what the public sees but even been to see what research is going on.

I had a half day Friday (much needed after such a busy week) and a friend from Juniata came to visit! We had a blast getting sushi, bowling with all the interns, and traveling to DC. The Smithsonian was having their Folklife Festival so we spent a lot of time there looking at all the different cultural activities and relaxing on the lawn. The rest of the day we walked around and looked at the different monuments. If all my weeks and weekends are going to be like this, summer is going to fly!