jess-savage's Journal

Date: 8 April, 2019
Location: Centennial Woods
Time: 4:00 pm
Weather: Gray, 45F, wet & rainy

The resident species I saw today were Black-capped Chickadees and Northern Cardinals. They forego migration because they are equipped with behavioral and physiological adaptations to endure the cold weather of Vermont. Black-capped Chickadees can go through temporary hypothermia when the temperatures drop very low, and Northern Cardinals can buff out their feathers to give them a little more insulation against the cold weather. One other adaptation chickadees can use to brave the weather is their roundness. It is easier to conserve heat when a bird has smaller extremities and is rounder. Chickadees and Northern Cardinals are also generalists, which means they can forage on a wide variety of food, and if, in the winter, there is less variety of forage, they can still survive through the season whereas specialists are more inclined to follow a food source that disappears during the winter months.

One facultative migrant to the city is the Red-winged Blackbird. The bird migrates from about 500 miles south. It is coming into Burlington to begin their mating season. The males come first to establish their territory, and they eat grains and seeds in this early part of the season. The environment is changing—these birds mostly subsist on insects and the insects will start to populate their habitats, and the blackbirds could be coming for this higher protein source. I did not see a Red-winged Blackbird, but they come in late March to early April. The males are coming so early so that they can get a chance to establish their breeding territory.

The only birds I could observe were resident species, so their wintering range was within Centennial Woods, and that is where I found them. Unfortunately, I don’t think I can complete the mini activity with the observations I made.

Time: 1:30 pm
Date: 22 April 2019
Location: Intervale Community Farm natural trail area

One distinct behavior I observed that I had not yet encountered this year was an animated exchange between two chickadees. They were somewhere high in the tree canopy and the birds were calling back and forth, back and forth for several minutes without (it seemed) even taking a breath. I had never heard two chickadees talking to each other like that, so it was really interesting to observe. I am not positive if that behavior is indicative of mating season. Maybe two males were talking to each other and establishing some territory. It was neat to hear a conversation between two birds. Chickadee nesting habitat is usually in birch trees and alder trees, and there were many of those in the Intervale woods. House Sparrows were spending time in low brushy thickets, threading in and out of the patches of branches. I wonder if they were foraging for materials for their nests. The house sparrows seemed to pair up and then break off and pair up again. I am not sure what kind of mating behavior house sparrows partake in, but maybe the small group was made up of males and females who were getting acquainted with one another, or possibly a group of mostly males who were sizing one another up. This type of highly interactive behavior seems typical of the early spring days. The last species I noticed possibly working on their nesting habitat was a Pileated Woodpecker. They were high in a tree drumming away, which might have been to forage for food, or it might have been to construct a nesting cavity. A woodpecker's nest habitat is different from a chickadee in their tree or a House Sparrow in narrow crevices of buildings or birdhouses because they build their nest inside an excavated hole in a tree.

Mini-activity: I heard 6 different species, but there was only 1 individual for each. I still cannot identify one sound I heard. It was a 2 second song and the bird sang every 15 or 20 seconds consistently for more than 6 or 7 minutes. There were 3 parts to the song (a high, swooping check mark, a low chatter, and a series of high cheep-cheep-cheeps. It was really nice to do this activity and I want to do the same thing when I can barely make out the individual sounds of 10 or more species in a true cacophony.