Bird Tour at UWNA 5/29

Today I took a tour of birds in the UW Naturalist Area. The first bird we saw was a red-winged blackbird. We saw a female perched on a cattail, and a male perched on an alder berry tree nearby. The UW Naturalist Area is a low land marsh, and the blackbirds we saw were perched right next to the water. Red-winged blackbirds are sexually dimorphic. The females are brown and spotted, and the males are black with a spot of red on either side of their body. The male red wing blackbirds are the ones that usually sing.These birds have up to 25 calls. Red-winged blackbirds are not monogamous, however the male will raise it's young with it's primary female.

Another bird we saw was the Black-capped chickadee. This bird got its name because it has a black cap on its head, and its call sounds like "chickade-de-de-de". An interesting fact about the chickadee is the more "de-de's" they add to the end of their call, the more trouble they think their in. This bird feeds on seeds, berries, insects, and insect eggs, and nests in cavities of rotting wood.

We also saw a song sparrow fly over an open field in the naturalist area. I had also previously seen a song sparrow in Pack Forrest Park. Song Sparrows are primarily brown with dark brown and white spots on their chest.

We then learned about the different types of swallows that are found in the Seattle Area. Swallows hang out over water, and like to feed on insects while their flying around above the water. The two swallows found in our area are the violet green swallow, and the barn swallow. You can easily tell them apart because the bark swallow has a fork in it's tail.

The last bird we learned about we did not actually get to see. This was the gold finch, Washington State's bird. Gold finch's have all yellow bodies with a black spot on their head, and black and white stripes on their wings.

Species List:
Gold Finch (Carduelis tristis)
Song Sparrow (Melospiza melodia)
Violet Green Swallow (Tachycineta thalassina)
Barn Swallow (Hirundo rustica)
Black-capped Chickadee (Chickidy Poecile atricapillus)
Red-winged blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus)

Posted on May 30, 2012 01:25 AM by lmcthe01