carlybills's Journal

On Monday, March 4 at 10:40am I sat down on the bench outside of Harris Hall on Athletic campus until 11:40am. The Apple weather app stated it was 40°F and mostly sunny with approximately 10mph winds in gusts. The bench I was sitting at is right under two trees and other trees line the building of Harris. There is direct sunlight all around the bench by patchy shade coverage right on the bench. I chose this spot because every time I walk to the Gutterson Parking garage I hear plenty of birdsong. The birdsong I usually hear out here is the Black-capped Chickadee which was definitely true on Monday. I focused in on a specific bird who was hanging out in one of the trees who was singing the most out of the couple that were there. It seemed to be hoping around the branches while singing in spurts while the other birds sang in between these spurts. This makes sense due to the amount of times I have walked right through this path and there is always Black-capped Chickadee song. It seems to be a recurrent part of their day as they are typically there in the morning and gone by the afternoon.
I tried the spishing technique as shown in the mini activity and it sort of got the birds to come a little closer but not too much. One bird went from the top of the tree to lower in closer to the trunk but not much closer to me. One reason why I think this might be able to work is because a lot of songbirds eat insects and the spishing sounds does sound a little bit like insect buzzing noises.

Today’s fieldwork took place on central campus green, in between my classes from 10:40am-11:40am. It was very sunny, but also windy with a temperature of 38 degrees F. I spotted a few year-round species including the Black-capped Chickadee and Tufted Titmouse. These species are year-round species because of many different adaptations that allow them to handle the harsh Vermont winters. For example, the Black-capped Chickadee has a dense coat which a great for insulation. They are also able to enter a controlled state of hypothermia called torpor, which we learned about in class, which drops their body temperature and allows for saving energy. Black-capped Chickadees also have a great memory for food storage where they can remember where they out their forages. Speaking of forages, they are great foragers which allows them to find food in small crevices, same goes for the Tufted Titmouse.

I also saw a few Ring-billed Gulls as I heard their call from above head. These are non-residential birds and could possibly be considered obligate migrates due to their almost obligatory behavior for them to migrate south in the winter even if their resources aren't diminishing; but they don't always migrate at the exact same time of year so it is hard to say. Ring-billed Gulls are omnivores and a big part of their diet includes insects so for them to go south for winter makes sense because their are very limited bugs in Vermont in this time of year. These birds are very found of staying by the water so it is likely that they have just arrived from a southern state like the Carolines, Georgia, or Florida. For my mini activity milage estimate, I used Fort Lauderdale, Florida as my southern point for the Ring-billed Gull because I saw a few while I was down there for spring break. If the Gull I saw while birding today just came from Fort Lauderdale, then they possible migrated a total of ~1,533 miles!