jnpearce's Journal

On Friday, May 4th, I took one last walk around my neighborhood for my final field observation. It was warm, but also becoming a little cloudy and windy. I ended up having to come back inside sooner than I hoped because of the tornado warning!

On this bird walk, I saw most of the birds I usually see around my neighborhood. This time, since I wasn't asked to pay close attention to any particular one thing, I thought about how I was very limited in my bird knowledge and identification skills at the beginning of this course, and now I find myself humming along with the bird song I hear outside, and knowing what bird the song belongs to without even thinking.

For this field observation, I decided to visit one of my favorite outdoor places in Essex: Indian Brook Reservoir. I visited Indian Brook on Monday the 23rd of April at 1:30 in the afternoon. The weather was incredibly nice, with no clouds in the sky and the temperature around 60 degrees. It was very sunny and there was little wind. Indian Brook is a man made reservoir. There are hiking trails all around the body of water in the woods, and it's a popular area in the summertime to swim, kayak, fish, or just take a hike.

While I was able to spot many different birds that I haven't seen yet during my bird walks, I paid close attention to the White-breasted Nuthatches I saw. I saw two male Nuthatches flying around this tall, half broken off dead tree. There were holes of all different sizes on the dead tree, which I'm guessing are from birds foraging for bugs in the bark. One Nuthatch kept landing on the dead tree, and every time the other male nuthatch tried to land on the dead tree, the first Nuthatch would fly at it and chase it away in the air, while making those "yank" sounds they do. While I'm not 100% sure, I would guess that the first male nuthatch was defending its nest. I'm guessing this because the time of year is right considering the nuthatches mate at the end of winter, and I think the male stays with the female during nesting season. I also think this because of the fact that the bird seemed to be defending this dead tree, and I think maybe the nest was in one of the dead holes.

All in all, this was definitely my favorite field observation so far because of how nice the weather was and because of how many birds I saw. I also liked observing the bird behavior, as well.

On Wednesday, April 15th, after I got home around 2:30 in the afternoon, I walked around the entire area of my neighborhood for my bird walk. It was about 45 degrees outside and overcast, but not too windy.

Lately when I've been walking my dog in the afternoon, I'll bring my phone and play bird calls to see if I can attract any birds to the area. I've been having a lot of success with the Northern Cardinal, who will actually fly over and converse with my cell phone! I really enjoy seeing these birds close up because of how bright red they are. Today on my bird walk, I saw two male cardinals and one female. The recording I uploaded was of one of the male cardinals singing.

This past Friday, April 6th, after eating brunch at "Sneaker's Bistro" in Winooski, Vermont, with two of my friends, we decided to go bird-watching down by the Winooski reservoir and dam. It was around 12:00. It was chilly outside but nice and sunny, and the sky was clear. Right now, because it's early spring, there wasn't a lot of plant life on the rock face of the dam area other than lichen and moss. We think there may have been some early season insects flying around down by the water, because we saw a small, brown bat skimming around by the surface and sometimes dipping into the water. We saw some familiar faces, like the cardinal, but it was really refreshing to observe some new birds I haven't had the chance to spot on my bird walks yet, like the gulls and the pigeons. I was also really excited to see the downy woodpecker on a nearby apartment complex's bird feeder, and was surprised how quickly the name of the bird sprang into my mind when I saw it!

For the migration aspect of this bird walk, I focused on the Downy Woodpecker. While I'm guessing during the warm months in Vermont, food for these birds must be relatively abundant since the main source of their diet, insects, are plentiful in the summer, it's probably a little more difficult for them to find food in the winter. I think this species is non-migratory because they can eat other foods to survive during the winter, and these foods can be found in Vermont. These include seeds, grain, plant material, and acorns. They are also feeder birds and will eat suet and sunflower seeds and stuff. I thought about how the Canada Goose migrates from North to South at the start of winter, and it has to do with the fact that there is not enough food for them in the Vermont winters and they must fly elsewhere to eat. This is because they eat grasses and plants and berries, which aren't available during winter months in the North.

On Saturday, March 24th, at about 10:00 am, I trekked into the dense woods behind the Champlain Valley Fairgrounds. I've explored this location many many times over the years I've lived in Essex, because my neighborhood lies right next to the fairgrounds. It was very sunny, and the forest was pleasantly cool since it wasn't very windy.

First thing I noticed right off the bat how many black-capped chickadees reside in the surrounding wood of my neighborhood. They're easy to spot because they never perch in one spot for too long before they fly off to sit somewhere else. I was able to get a really nice recording of them all singing back and forth to each other, and an American Crow even called out at the end, which made it easy for me to spot him sitting in a tree about ten yards behind me.

During this bird walk, I was trying to focus on how the birds interacted with one another. I noticed at some points, the chickadees all let each other take turns singing, and then other times they would all lapse over one another. They also made lots of different sounds, ranging from the two-toned whistle to the louder chattering noises. I'm not sure what they were trying to say to one another, but it was such a nice day outside and I'm sure they were nice and warm in the sunshine, they were probably all just happy birds.

I always think about how nice it would be to set up some bird feeders in my backyard, because my neighborhood is SO full of birds that I know it would be a good way to see them out in the open. However, I have two outdoor cats who are very avid hunters, and so I feel it would be irresponsible of me to lure these poor birds into my backyard just to make my cats' hunting trips a little easier.

At 1 pm on March 8th, 2018, I went for my second field observation outing in the dense woods behind my house. There are several worm walking and biking paths snaking throughout the area so I was able to walk to many different areas of the forest on the paths. The woods has many tall deciduous and coniferous trees, as well as a small stream cutting through the middle. The weather was cold (around 35 degrees F) and there wasn't a constant wind, but every now and then a breeze would come through and shake giant globs of snow off the branches of the trees and I would have to bend over and shield my camera so it didn't get wet from the snow. It was overcast.

This trip, I tried to think about how the birds I was seeing survive during the winter. There are still a fair amount of berry bushes and seeds littered around the woods. Many of my neighbors have multiple bird feeders set up around their yards, and I see birds using them all the time. I'm also guessing these birds did a fair amount of preparation for the winter by collecting and storing food while the weather was still warm. I always think about how I'd love to have a couple bird feeders in our backyard, but my two cats are avid hunters and I don't want to make it any easier for them to catch their prey.

Something pretty neat happened on this bird walk. Because the woods are so dense and the trees are extremely tall, I initially was having a hard time finding any birds. I could hear them in the trees very clearly, but I couldn't find them. I decided to play some bird calls on my iPhone, and was able to get a black-capped chickadee track going. I moved around the woods for a while playing different chickadee calls. Finally, after I had been standing in one spot for about 10 minutes, I had about 5 or 6 different chickadees calling back to my phone. I turned my phone off, and the chickadees all continued to converse with each other, never interrupting another. It was nice to listen to them all sing together.

For my first field observation, I decided to set up camp near my neighbor's bird feeders around 3:00 on Sunday afternoon (Feb. 11th). He put out the feeders last summer and whenever I take my dog for a walk past them, I always see lots of different birds. Luckily it wasn't too cold or windy outside. Over the summer, he had positioned the feeders next to a bush on the side of his yard, but after realizing that this gave the neighborhood squirrels limited access to the bird feed, he moved the feeders into an open area of his yard without any trees or bushes too close.

Within the 90 minutes that I spent watching the birds that landed on the feeders (or ones that I saw in the general vicinity) I saw 4 different species total. I noted 1 Northern Cardinal, 3 American Goldfinches, 4 Black-capped Chickadees and 4 Blue Jays. The Blue Jays were the birds most often landing on the feeders.

In terms of the prompt for this assignment, I paid close attention to the Jays and the Chickadees since they differ in size and shape. Plus, they were the birds I saw the most of. The chickadees would flap their wings quickly during takeoff, then continue to flap in midair, and then tuck their wings into their bodies (they looked like little bullets) and then once they dropped a little in the air, they would start flapping again. This all happened in very quick succession. Before landing, they would lean their bodies back a little and beat their wings forward to slow themselves down. I liked watching the blue jays more because of how they hop around. They had a slightly similar flight pattern to the chickadees, where they tuck their wings in, but they would lose altitude quicker than the chickadees, which I'm guessing is due to their size. They also used their legs to push off for flight and started beating their wings. I didn't see the chickadees doing that, but maybe I wasn't watching closely enough.