03 de mayo de 2020

April 23rd At Home Bird Watching

After our in-class bird watching to celebrate Earth Day, I stayed out on my porch to continue watching. I live in the second row of houses off the coast of the Chesapeake Bay with a few Magnolia and pine trees in neighboring yards. We have already spotted two nests in crevices in our deck. Most birds in this area nest in higher trees, in houses, or in bird boxes. If I were to walk to the boardwalk in my town I would see large osprey nests on the tops of wood pilings.

I saw a Red-Winged Blackbird chasing after another blackbird and returning to an Oak in a neighbor's yard. Since there aren't many large trees in my suburban city this would be a prime territory to have. Many of the people I live near have bird feeders, houses, or birdbaths in their yards. These provide resources to the birds who are able to claim territories in this area. Claiming at least part of this oak as it's territory means that the Red-Winged Blackbird has higher fitness than the bird it was flying after.

The nest that the Blackbird makes will probably contain similar materials to the nests on my deck. We believe a Mourning Dove is nesting on our deck. When flying in and out they've dropped candy wrappers, fishing line, and small twigs. Birds pick up their nesting material off of sidewalks and from green areas. Litter is common in North Beach and has become a part of many of the nests I see. Osprey have to work harder to find their nest-building material. Large Osprey nests commonly contain sticks broken off from scags found in the bordering wetlands and other grassy material.

Along with the Osprey, Red-Winged Blackbird, and Mourning Dove, I also saw 5 European Starlings. The starlings were spaced along an electrical wire and didn't seem to be defending any territory.

I was able to watch a lot of activity from my tiny back porch. As spring progresses I'll be able to keep track of what birds make my back yard their home.

This is the link to my Sound Map: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-9AJeO47qDHoGfAl_owMSe-_ZAg96vNrvwjUnkd9PHo/edit?usp=sharing

Publicado el 03 de mayo de 2020 por madilong madilong | 3 observaciones | 0 comentarios | Deja un comentario

02 de mayo de 2020

April 29th Picnic Bird Watching

It was a sunny warm 70-degree day when my friend and I went to the woods for a picnic and bird watching. We made it into a patch of grass in a green hardwood forest around 2:20 in the afternoon and stayed until 4:00 pm. While I could hear many songs and calls I don't have binoculars and couldn't spot the birds in the trees. I did see one Northern Cardinal but wasn't quick enough with my camera.

Publicado el 02 de mayo de 2020 por madilong madilong | 2 observaciones | 0 comentarios | Deja un comentario

14 de abril de 2020

Urban Bay Front Birdwalk April 14, 2020

I had to stick to walking on the sidewalks in my urban neighborhood for this bird walk. There are trees of varying sizes in people's yards and some border the sidewalk. It was a partially cloudy afternoon with a high of 55 degrees and a slight breeze. I walked for around 2 hours staring at 1 p.m. Getting outside was a treat!

Publicado el 14 de abril de 2020 por madilong madilong | 1 observación | 0 comentarios | Deja un comentario

08 de abril de 2020

Ethan Allan Homestead April 7th, 2020

The sun was shining and walking around without a jacket didn't mean regret. Early spring in VT can be a gamble with mud-season rains popping up in the forecast. Luckily during my excursion to the Ethan Allen Homestead, the weather was clear sunny skies with a temperature of 55 degrees. I hadn't left my apartment for the two days prior and seeing the landscape of open fields, tree buffers, and the Winooski river made my day.

Heading toward a field adjacent to the parking lot at 1:25 pm I saw the first bird of my walk. The American robin was perched on a tree branch eating the buds. American robins are residents of the United States anywhere south of the Canadian border. Sometimes migrating to lower elevations and latitudes in the Southeastern U.S. and the Gulf of Mexico or remaining close to their winter grounds American Robins have a variable migration route. During breeding months the American Robin can travel to Northern Alaska. American robins that live in areas with poor food availability would be more likely to migrate further in search of resources.

Walking further away from the parking lot I started following the Peninsula trail. A tree-filled border habitat was bordered by the trail on one side and the Winooski River on the other. The border habitat is where I saw the rest of the birds I was able to ID: 3 Northern Cardinals, 4 Downy Woodpeckers, an American Goldfinch, and a Song Sparrow. Northern cardinals and Downy woodpeckers do not migrate and are permanent residents of Vermont.

Song sparrows are similar to the American Robin and migrate mostly dependent snow cover, winter temperature, and seed presence. (Song sparrow migration path length: 2299mi)

American Goldfinch in northern populations migrate. The length they fly depends on sex, age, and latitude. Depending on almost only seeds for nutrition Goldfinch will move in their wintering habitat to find a better food supply. (American Goldfinch migration path length: 2073mi)

Northern cardinals and Downy woodpeckers are able to survive in the cold winters of Vermont by nesting in tree cavities, dispersing to areas where food resources are present, and pack on body weight prior to winter.

After enjoying more sunshine I walked out to the parking lot and left the park around 3:00 pm. I was able to ID 10 birds in total.

Publicado el 08 de abril de 2020 por madilong madilong | 5 observaciones | 0 comentarios | Deja un comentario

28 de marzo de 2020

Oakledge Park March 27, 2020 5:00 pm - 6:30 pm

After driving back to VT from MD I wanted to spend some time outside and not in the car. It was a beautiful afternoon, around 51 degrees and sunny with an 11 mph wind. With Covid- 19 causing closings I wasn't sure if Oakledge Park was still going to be open but it was packed! Oakledge has a nice main walking path with sparse trees that leads to a small beach area. While there are a few other paths, I stayed in the sunlit beach path.

No birds were wading in Lake Champlain while I walked along the beach. The wind was causing the water to have white caps which could have led to there being no geese or ducks. In the trees lining the path, there weren't any birds I could see. The people of Burlington were keeping Oakledge park lively this Friday afternoon which might have kept some birds away.

Walking back towards the car was when I saw the first bird. There was a gull soaring solo above the main park walkway. I couldn't hear it making a call so it wasn't making any vocal communications with other gulls. I did notice the black wings tips on the Gull which can help cool the bird's wings. The heat is concentrated on the feather surface and then taken away by the wind.

By the car, there was a small clearing close to the edge of a wooded area. In the clearing, I could hear a lot of bird calls from various species. I couldn't see any of them and the recording I took was very poor. The birds were most likely calling because of the heavy traffic of pedestrians walking through the woods. Calls are normally used to alert birds of possible threats.

The second and last bird I saw looked like an American Crow but was too far away from me to accurately ID without binoculars. I'm terrible at ID-ing birds during walks but I guess the more walks I go on the better I'll get! The Blackbird was perched on a branch but wasn't resting. It kept messing with its wings so I can assume that it was grooming itself.

After, watching the blackbird for a little bit I left Oakleadge park around 6:30 pm. I only saw 2 birds on my walk: the Gull and the Blackbird.

Publicado el 28 de marzo de 2020 por madilong madilong | 2 observaciones | 0 comentarios | Deja un comentario

07 de marzo de 2020

North Beach Park and Campground, March 6, 2020

School's out! So, I took my friend out to North Beach on a chilly late afternoon bird walk. It was 31 degrees with overcast conditions when we started at 4:30 pm. North Beach has a line of trees leading towards the beach along the road and a few trees closer to the water. Rock point, a church property located adjacent to North Beach, has a few forested trails that connect to the beach so we wandered down one of those for 30 minutes.

My friend spotted the first birds on our walk. There were 3 visible small birds perched on the tops of the trees lining the path from the road toward the beach. I couldn't ID them at first but when they started singing I was able to ID them as Song Sparrows. These birds weren't moving around and sat in the top of the trees for about 5 minutes. There were a lot of acorns on the ground surrounding the trees. So, the birds were most likely resting in the treetops which were close to seeds that the birds could find on the ground. Even though the birds were vulnerable to the slight breeze and cold temperature their high body temperature allows them to stay outside in colder weather without being as affected. The birds also probably had their wings tucked close to their body to trap heat.

Walking down the beach we didn't notice any birds our first time down. There were a few snags close to the beach. Most of them had larger holes or breakages that were close to the ground which wouldn't be a good spot for a bird as predators have better access. As the beach connected with a forested area, we began our walk through the woods. The woods were fairly quiet besides the squirrels making chirps that could easily be bird calls. Even though we didn't see any birds in the heavily wooded areas we could see several snags that had multiple small circular holes toward their tops. These smaller holes away from predators would be a good nesting area for multiple birds as the birds would be protected from the harsh winds and cold and they can group closely to share heat. Along with the smaller holes, some snags had larger holes which could have been from a woodpecker looking for bugs to eat. Once, we reached a clearing off of the wooded path we saw a gull and two unknown black birds flying above the trees. They moved to fast for me to ID.

As it was getting darker outside we walked back toward the beach. On the beach, we heard the distinct call of the Canada Goose. Getting closer to the sound we could see that there were two geese and three Mallards resting in the lake. Their feet stay warm in the frigid water of the lake because of the counter-current blood exchange that happens between the warm blood heading towards the feet and the cold blood returning to the heart. I was glad to see the geese and ducks while we were leaving the beach as the woods had been less lively than expected. In total, we saw 11 birds and were able to ID 8 of them before we left North Beach at 6:15 pm.

Publicado el 07 de marzo de 2020 por madilong madilong | 4 observaciones | 0 comentarios | Deja un comentario

20 de febrero de 2020

Centennial Woods February 19th, 2020

I biked through a little snow squall and arrived at Centennial Woods at 8 am. Once I got settled the snow had stopped and the weather was mostly overcast. I found a nice fallen branch to sit on so the sound of my boots crunching on the snow-covered trails didn't scare away the birds. I don't own binoculars and didn't loan any out before I began this adventure so I relied mostly on my ears to try and ID any birds that came close. At the beginning of my watch, I heard a few 'yanks' of what I can only assume were White-breasted Nuthatches. I tried to spot them in the trees but there was limited light in the tree canopy to distinguish the birds from the tree bark. I heard another call that stumped me. In my notes, I described the call as "squeaks with an 'I see you' whistle". When I got to my laptop I googled this to try and figure out what bird was but nothing right popped up. After listening while sitting on my branch for around 40 more minutes the sun came out! I hoped that I would be able to see a few more birds with the added light. I could hear the loud 'HA HA' call of an American Crow so I tried to look for their black feathers against the light brown tree bark but couldn't spot it. After an hour had passed I decided to walk along some of the trails because I didn't have much luck at my original spot.

Crossing two footbridges over a slightly frozen stream I noticed a small amount of movement at the base of a tree. I thought it was some low-hanging branches swaying in the light breeze at first. Then I noticed a bird beginning to climb up the base of the tree. I quickly pulled out the camera on my phone to take a video so that I would have more time to try and ID the bird if it flew away. The video wasn't the highest quality but based on the bird's tree-climbing behavior, the Audubon phone app, and the help of the amazing Professor Strong I ascertained the bird was a Brown Creeper. After learning how to ID the brown creeper in class I wanted to see one in the field because I think their tree-climbing behavior is interesting. Declaring my trek into Centennial Woods a success I walked the trails back to my bike, leaving around 9:30 am. It was nice to start my day with a peaceful morning out in the woods. Even though it was around 30 degrees Fahrenheit and I'm not a fan of being cold I'm looking forward to going bird watching again.

Publicado el 20 de febrero de 2020 por madilong madilong | 1 observación | 1 comentario | Deja un comentario

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