Whoooo Knows about the Hawk Day?

Maclay Celebrates Hawk Day on Campus

Photo by Alfred Kenneally on Unsplash

Sometimes humans are not the center of the planet. Maclay upper school students gathered at the football field on Feb. 1 to commemorate Hawk Day. The tradition began because on the same day in 2019, a hawk caught a squirrel on campus and remained sitting to devour it, while many people, including English teacher Lee Norment and biology teacher Ariel Evans, were watching the scene. Since then, Norment and Evans joked about creating a fun activity to celebrate Hawk Day, and their joke became a reality.

Before the Hawk Day event, students read a short poem or an essay about a bird of prey in their English classes and briefly learned about the bird in their biology classes to get a merging experience. During the event, around 40 students who signed up for it had a chance to see an owl brought from the Tallahassee Museum. An owl was brought instead of a hawk, since the hawk was undergoing rehabilitation. The anatomy of an owl was on display as well to help students get a deep understanding of what owls look like.

“Owls are nocturnal, and they’re an animal you hear a lot but not an animal that you see a whole lot, so being able to see one in the day time, get a little bit more up close with it and have that close encounter with a wild animal is always cool,” Norment said.

Throughout the event, Education Program Manager Allison Ashcroft talked about various aspects of a specific owl species, the great horned owl. In between her explanations, students asked many deep questions about the owl’s appearance, functions of different body parts, behaviors, body language and more.

“I liked when they talked about behavior and anatomy of the wing,” junior Griff Martinez said. “I wish we had these more often. I liked these a lot, and it would be good for the biology department.”

In addition to learning about the general information about owls, students also heard about the story of the particular owl that was brought on campus. After coming out of its nest too early, the owl was orphaned, imprinted and rehabilitated. It was then moved to the Tallahassee Museum and became fully able to fly.

“Our main goal is talking about conservation of animals,” Ashcroft said. “The more you know about an animal, the more you have empathy and sympathy for the animal.”