Field Ornithology - Journal #1

Today, May 18th 2020, I went to Colchester Pond in Colchester, Vermont in pursuit of some waterbirds. I left after our morning teams meeting, and arrived at Colchester Pond around 6:45 in the morning. I met up with my friend Taylor who is also in our field ornithology class to help with taking pictures and identifying birds. This birding excursion lasted until around 12:30 in the afternoon until I had to head back home for our second teams meeting of the day. When I first arrived in the morning it was overcast and chilly with temperatures in the low 50's. However, around 10:30 in the morning it began to warm up enough to take off a few layers and was a beautiful day despite a few gusts of wind here and there. By the end of the excursion, the skies were completely blue with only a few clouds in the sky. The area of Colchester Pond consists of a 3-mile round-trip trail around the perimeter of the pond. Throughout this trail, there were multiple different habitats. Most often, I came across open fields on my right-hand side that had tall grass and scattered shrubby trees. This open habitat is the area where I saw most of the songbirds that I identified. I also often came across areas on the trail that were adjacent to the pond in which I saw more of the waterbirds, such as the spotted sandpipers. Most of the habitat next to the water consisted of tall and dense tan vegetation that allowed for the birds to hide very well. There was also a large portion of the trail that was dense forest and had a lot of new growth shooting up in front of the older trees. When I came across these forest habitats, I noticed that there were far fewer birds compared to the open and water habitats. However, this could have something to do with the time of day considering I was near the open and water habitats earlier in the morning. Overall, this was a very worthwhile trip that taught me many new species and allowed me to gain a better grasp on my identification skills.

Publicado el mayo 18, 2020 06:48 TARDE por g_underhill