Hi, I'm Dr. Don Hayden, Ally's dad. The past few weeks have been very busy, I'm up to my ears in fossils! I'm having a great time though, because paleontology is what I love. There is nothing like the thrill of discovering a new species of dinosaur, or making a solid connection between these ancient creatures and present-day animals.

Right now I'm searching for fossilized bones in Dinosaur Provincial Park in Alberta, Canada. Most people call it the "Badlands," I call it home. Here in the park, I'm surrounded by thousand of fossils and millions of years of dinosaur history.

We can't just yank the fossils out of the ground. We must extract the delicate specimens very carefully and make detailed notes about their location. That makes for a lot of work but it's well worth it.

On this dig, we found plenty of specimens to send down to the preparator's room at the Natural History Museum. The folks down there will begin unpacking the tons of bones we've recovered. When I join them, we will begin the slow process of classification called cladistics.

My most recent find is very promising, it seems to be a cluster of eggs or perhaps some coprolite, I'm not sure. The only way to be sure is to carefully extract the fossils, wrap them in protective plaster and ship them back to the museum for further study.

I can't wait for Ally to see what we've got. If she continues her studies, I bet she'll make a great paleontologist someday!

Dr. Donald Hayden is portrayed by actor, Peter Horton.