Diario de madilong

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.

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.