Union Bay Natural Area, UW campus, 5/16

I spent another morning bird watching at UBNA to hopefully add to the list of observed birds in the area. The weather was chilly but clear skies and no wind.

My first morning there I was about 90% sure I saw a song sparrow in one bushes on the pathway and after twenty minutes I saw another hopping around on the trail in front of me. They are tiny birds that are grayish colored with streaks of white down its chest. Since we are on the coast, their feathers are a darker color than other sparrows living inland. The reason for this is there is a pigment in coastal sparrows that make the feathers darker and tough enough to withstand weather conditions that would otherwise make their feathers degrade. The song sparrow is the most familiar song bird in the northwest because they can be found in forests, marshes, parks and other urban areas. One mating behavior that is not common for other song birds is the male that has a more complicated call has a higher fitness because it shows the female he has a higher ability to learn. The sparrow does not lay many eggs and will only have a second brood in one season if their eggs are lost to predators. The best place to spot the Song Sparrow at UBNA is low to the ground or in shrubs and tall grasses.

Another bird that I spotted more than once was the American Robin. I had seen it before at UBNA but only flying overhead. These birds are present in the United States year-round and live in parks, forests and other urban areas making them very familiar to people. The males and females both have a reddish orange chest and black back with a short yellow beak. The Robin has several different calls but their most common is a whistling sound that males will sing early in the morning and sometimes in the afternoon. Males attract females by their singing and spreading their tail feathers wide. They will mostly eat worms, which is why they feed in the morning, and hop a few steps on the ground while searching for food. Just watching them it appears as if they listen for their food by the way they cock their head to the ground but they actually have very good sight and use it to located worms or other insects.

Along with the new birds, I observed another American Gold-Finch, Red-Winged Blackbird and Black-Capped Chickadee.

Posted on June 2, 2012 04:17 PM by karavanslyck