jnpearce's Journal

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.

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.