Assignment 2: Ecological Physiology

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.

Posted on March 8, 2018 06:49 PM by jnpearce