Field Journal #2

I went to observe birds around Redstone campus on February 17, 2020 between 4:30pm and 6:00pm. The temperature was between 20 and 25 degrees fahrenheit, and there was a bit of a breeze and snow on the ground. I centered my observations around the small pond and marsh area next to Redstone Lofts, and explored a bit near the Patrick Gym. Overall, I saw many birds during this time - 25 American Robins, 20 European Starlings, 2 Black-capped Chickadees, and upwards of 100 American Crows. The majority of my observations were between 4:30pm and 5:15pm, as it got closer to sunset I observed less and less birds, and by sunset around 5:30pm I saw pretty much no birds.

One behavior I observed ties into the prompt for this week, as all of the American Crows I saw were flying overhead to the southeast. While watching the American Crows I noticed that their flight pattern is very continuous, I rarely saw them stop flapping their wings unless they were much higher in the air. The ones flying higher would sometimes glide for a bit before flapping their wings again. I found this to be very interesting, because I had previously assumed that they would be more inclined to glide rather than flap. The more that I thought about this it made sense because American Crows have elliptical-shaped wings, which are not well adapted for soaring over long distances. When I compared the flight of the American Crows to the flight of the American Robins there were very small differences. The American Robins I observed were not flying long distances, and were much closer to the ground. Their wing shape also seemed elliptical, but they tended to flap their wings a few times and then glide for a second or two with their wings out.

I focused my mini-activity on drawing an American Robin because I have been seeing many of them lately. The features on them that I particularly noticed were their coloring, which is very blocky, the colors do not tend to blend together in their feathers. Obviously I noted the red-ish orange color on the middle of their bodies, which is starkly contrasted with the darker color of their heads and wings. While they were flying, I noticed that they had a lighter block of color in between the red on their stomachs and the black on their tail feathers, which I had never noticed before. I also saw quite a few American Robins on the patches of exposed ground in-between the snow, and they seemed to be foraging around the ground for food.

Publicado el febrero 18, 2020 12:56 MAÑANA por acoates