Heron Watching on a Year 2 Nature Walk

While on our Nature Walk, Year 2 found a heron in Hobson’s Conduit. We had a plan for something else on our walk, but the children were so entranced, we stayed to watch it for a good 15 minutes! We observed it standing very still and decided it was looking for fish and didn’t want them to know it was there. Then, it caught a mouse! We saw the mouse’s tail and back legs hanging out of its mouth for only a few seconds before it tossed it up and swallowed it whole! We watched the lump in its throat go down, down, down… This led the children to a discussion about the cycle of life and how it was probably a quick and painless death since the heron doesn’t have teeth. They then begged to come back in to do a water colour of the heron. We couldn’t have planned a more interesting or lasting experience than this.