leahcawthorn's Journal

These observations were made on February 4th, 2016. We went out to Shelburne Pond around 3 PM and walked around in the woods in the back. The weather was warm, about 45 degrees, and overcast. Almost immediately we saw a few American Crows flying overhead. Then as we walked back into the woods for awhile. We found a leopard frog trying to hop across the ice (struggling a little) before we found any more birds.
As we walked back towards a boggy like area, we began hearing some chickadees. We weren't sure how many so we started to go closer and then saw two chickadees. They were kind of flying together and flew over our heads, continuously whistling. One landed on a branch over head. We kept walking along the trail and thought maybe we heard the sound of a woodpecker. We waited still for awhile and then heard the whistle of a downy woodpecker but did not end up seeing it.
We walked back along the trail and heard and saw some more crows along the way. We would wait at some spots and listen for more birds but did not really here anymore. Then at an opening near the pond we heard some geese overhead and there was a flock of Canadian geese flying in a v-formation. There was forty four of them. After this we headed back to the car and stopped to look at the frog again.

I went on this bird walk beginning at 4 PM on February 18. The weather was cold, about 18 degrees and clear and sunny. The sun was kind of beginning to go down. Before we even parked to begin our walk, as we were driving we spotted a Red-tailed Hawk that was sitting on a branch on the road above us. We stopped to look at it and it just stared down at the truck and continued to sit there. We then parked and were able to begin our walk
The trail was super icy and there was snow on the ground through the trees. We walked all the way down to the bay. On the way down there we heard two crows on separate occasions and continued our walk. We tried to play some bird noises on the way but did not receive any responses. We got down to the bay and everything was frozen. We stayed there for a while, hopping to hear or see some birds, but all we could hear was the sound of the ice shifting/cracking in the bay.
On the walk back to the car we were able to hear two more crows and we spotted an American Robin on a fruit bearing tree as well as a bird's nest up in a tree. We did not spot much on this bird walk, maybe because of the time of day or possibly the cold, clear weather. We were really expecting to see the most birds near the bay and were very surprised when we heard nothing but that could be due to the fact that the bay is frozen, although last week at Shelburne pond we observed many more birds and that was also next to a frozen body of water.