lydianapell13's Journal

This week, because we were focused on nesting/mating, I decided to revisit the spot I went to last week to look at the Canada Geese again. Last week I walked by a small pond on Redstone Campus and saw what looked like a female building her nest at the edge of the water. After watching the geese this week I continued to walk along the edge of the golf course onto South Prospect. There is a skinny strip of trees that while suburban, is much quieter than some places in Burlington. I started at 10:30am and went until 11:30am. It was a beautiful day, very sunny and warm. There was a little wind, but not too much.

Last week there was a goose sitting on what looked like a nest at the pond on Redstone campus. She appeared to be still sitting there on Saturday so she must be on a nest. I've also seen the male around the pond, but last week I didn't see him at all so he must have left the pond to either forage for nest building materials or food. They were both there today, with one on the nest and the other swimming in the pond. They pond is completely fenced off, so it's a good place for them to be as there aren't any humans that can get too close, and predators would definitely have a hard time getting in there as well. I don't know if they're able to tell that no predators can get in when they arrived, but as far as territory selection goes, it seems like a really good spot to be. Because the pond is so small, they're also the only birds in that area, so it's easy to defend because it's not too big.

As far as nesting/mating/territory defense in the other species, I didn't see any nests or any indication of mating, other than the Pileated Woodpecker pecking on wood, but that may have just been for food and not as a mating attraction (it was really far up, I couldn't see it very well).

Nesting habitats definitely differ among the different species that I've seen. The geese are on the shore of a pond, the woodpecker is in a tree, and pigeons often have nests that are underneath the ledge of a building. These are super different in terms of human interaction too. Pigeons are definitely interacting with humans a lot more than geese or woodpeckers.

While I was outside, I heard almost exclusively American Robins singing, however I also heard the Canada Geese, the Pileated woodpecker, some Song Sparrows and maybe a Yellow Warbler (but I wasn't sure).

Today I went out behind the golf course to observe birds. There's a pond by the Redstone Lofts where I've seen lots of different species before so I decided to do my bird watching there. I started at 9:30 and went to 10:30. The weather was warm, probably about 40 degrees, but cloudy. It wasn't windy though so overall it was a good day to go. Today I saw quite a few gulls, but I couldn't identify them because they were flying by too fast. I also saw 3 Rock Pigeons on top of one of the buildings. There were a few different small flocks of birds that flew by- I think they were blackbirds but again, they were moving too fast to identify. There were also 2 Canada Geese and a male and female Mallard.

Thinking back to why some species stay through the winter, I would assume that it's because while it's hard to survive a winter in Vermont, it's also extremely hard to migrate- it takes a lot of energy. I think it would be too hard for something the size of a Black-capped Chickadee to migrate hundreds of miles. Because their bodies are so small and their metabolism is high, I think it would be too hard for them to fly for extended periods of time. In the case of the Black-capped Chickadee though, they are pretty well adapted to a winter in Vermont. They are generalist feeders, so they have more resources as options, and they can behaviorally prepare for a very cold they. They can go into facilitated hypothermia, where they allow their body temperature to decrease substantially in order to preserve energy.

Migrating birds try to avoid those cold days by just leaving the area entirely. The Mallards were coming from the southern parts of the US, and probably were travelling to find a suitable place to build a nest for the breeding season. I'm assuming the change in temperature helped facilitate their decision to travel back up, but it also has to do with their internal annual clock. Mallards are obligate migrators, but they may be a little surprised by the mid-April weather in VT. I think that their annual clock just tells them what time to leave where the wintered and to come up to wherever they're breeding, but I think if the climate is changing they can't exactly count on that, their temporal clock is depending on past conditions, so they definitely could be surprised by the cold days we've been having. There's an advantage to leaving earlier, as they get the first choice on territory, but the disadvantage is that it's still cold and they have to wait for females to arrive before they get to mate.

I looked at where Mallards are migrating to and from, and it looks like it's a distance similar to from Kentucky to Montreal. That's about 950 miles. If they were in VT, and it's 100 miles from Burlington to Montreal, that means they had already traveled up to 850 miles!

The date for my birdwatch was 3/14/19 from 1:30-2:30. The weather was sunny and warm, but very windy. There is lots of interaction between the birds, usually fighting over who is at the feeder. The most frequent communication is birds arriving onto the feeder are fighting with the bird that is already at the feeder. It also seems like the Black-capped Chickadees are definitely the most vocal, although I also definitely heard the cardinals, White-breasted Nuthatches, House Sparrows, and Tufted Titmice.

The chickadees are also much braver than any of the other species, they seem to not care as much when humans are sitting around. I think they're probably watching each other's backs in the event of a predator, and communicating that nobody is making threatening moves towards them. The chickadees have a blueish gray color to them, as do the white-breasted nuthatches. I'm assuming they evolved that way as they can blend in pretty well in the winter when there isn't much color on the landscape. I was wondering the significance of the cap on chickadees though. What advantage does that have?

There was a chickadee that was foraging for food which is super important for something that has such a high metabolism and stays during the winter. I would imagine that they do this for the majority of the day in order to survive.

The pishing was an interesting activity, the chickadees were really interested in what I was doing. However, I couldn't quite seem to figure out the right frequency, so they kept disappearing and reappearing. I have no idea why that sound would be enticing to birds.

For this field observation, I went to the bike path down by the water in between the skate park and North Beach. The weather was cold and windy, which is again probably why I didn't see many birds. I saw 1 American Crow flying overhead, 3 Black-capped Chickadees, and a Dark-eyed Junco.

I noticed that the Black-capped Chickadees looked very chubby, which I can only assume is the result of fluffing up their feathers to keep warm. I would also assume that both the chickadees and juncos are probably spending most of their time foraging for food. I think the crow was probably doing the same thing, but they seem to spend a lot more of their time looking for food while in flight, whereas chickadees and juncos seem to stay much closer to the ground and in evergreen trees when they can.

I saw 18 snags on my walk, 6 of which had cavities in them. I didn't whack them with a stick for fear of disturbing something too much, but a lot of the snags seemed to have woodpecker holes in them and I was wondering if the woodpeckers got to the tree before or after it died. I think the things most likely to use the cavities in the winter would be owls and squirrels. I guess smaller birds could use them too, I just used to think they stayed in evergreen trees but that definitely doesn't have to be the case.

I went to Centennial Woods from 3:00 to 4:30pm. It was very windy but clear, and pretty cold. I think the windiness affected how many species of birds I saw. I saw around 50 American Crows just flying overhead, 3 House Sparrows flying, and 2 Black-capped Chickadees in the evergreen trees. I also heard the chickadees singing.
The chickadees had a flight pattern that would be considered ballistic, where they flap a few times, drop, and then repeat. This was very different from the crows, which have a constant steady flapping. Chickadees have small round bodies with wings that are pretty short relative to their body length, whereas crows have a much longer wing. Chickadees generally live in suburbs, open woodlands, and clearings (very variable surroundings), and American Crows also have a very varied habitat, but I would say the area that they fly in is different.
Crows tend to fly very high up over open areas for long periods of time, whereas Black-capped Chickadees tend to fly in and around trees. I would assume that the shorter wing would give Chickadees an advantage over maneuverability in between branches, whereas the longer, broader wing on the American Crow gives an advantage in open spaces because they can get more lift due to the larger surface area compared to the body size.
This Field Observation wasn't as successful as I was hoping, and I think it was probably due to the time of day, the temperature, and the windiness. Next time I hope to go in the morning on a day that's less windy.