ST PETER — The kindergartners filed into the cafeteria just as
quietly as mice Friday morning. Luckily, they didn’t look like
mice, though, because there were several feathered carnivores
that would have made meals of them, as Mike Billington of the
University of Minnesota Raptor Center quickly taught the kids.
Billington had four raptors to introduce to the students of
South Elementary Early Learning Center in St. Peter — a bald
eagle, a red-tailed hawk, a peregrine falcon and an owl. “Want
to know a secret? These birds are afraid of you,” Billington
said, adding that due to the kindergartners’ “grizzly bear” size
compared to the birds, they’d think the students would want to
eat them for lunch. “Are you going to eat my birds today?”
“Noooooooooooooooo,” they said. Just as promised, the
kindergartners kept “frozen like icicles” as to not upset the
birds, and one by one Billington brought the raptors out,
offering interesting and disgusting information about their
hunting, eating and even pooping habits. As B