Diario de jridge1821

Time: 2-3:30pm
Weather: 75% to 100% cloud cover 59 degrees (feels like 57). 7mph winds coming from the North
Location: Centennial woods/Centennial Field/Greenmount Cemetery (Forested with a mix of residential/urban areas due to the baseball field and electric station).
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Birds saw:
Red-breasted Nuthatch 3
Brown Creeper 3
Northern Cardinal 2
Song Sparrow 4
American Goldfinch 2
Pine Warbler 2
Ruby-crowned Kinglet 1
American Crow 2
Rock Pigeon 5
White-crowned Sparrow 1
House Wren 1
Blue-headed Vireo 2
Black-capped Chickadee 3
Tufted Titmouse 1
Blue Jay 1
Downy Woodpecker 1
Ring-billed Gull 1
Red-tailed Hawk 1
Eastern Phoebe 1
House Finch 2
European Starling 1

2-3:30pm
54 degrees (feels like 48 degrees)
Partly cloudy (20-30% cloud cover)
17 mph wind coming from the West.
Area consists of a retention pond/residential/recreational (track fields, golf course, etc.)

This Friday it was very windy, making it difficult to hear bird calls. The birds we were frequently hearing were doing note after note of calls or songs, making it sound like one long string. We saw two Ruby-crowned Kinglets in two separate areas, but had very similar habitats. It was smaller clusters of trees surrounded by open areas (usually a field or golf course), or buildings. Habitat requirements often fluctuate from species to species, as it depends on what they feed on. One instance at the start of the Burlington rec path there was a Northern Cardinal constantly singing in a bush that was right next to the path, it could be defending a territory from a potential rival (we didn’t see another cardinal). The territory was very good as across the path there was a bird feeder which is very good if you are feeding chicks. This bird's fitness must be good as the song repertoire seemed to last for a couple of minutes before it eventually stopped. In the retention pond right next to the redstone lofts there was a pair of Canada Geese nesting there. We couldn’t see the nest but it was situated in the reeds, which I assume were patted down to make the nest. Other things that could be used are leaves, other plants, feathers, or potentially some ‘fluff’ that can come from trees when they begin to pollinate.

For my locator map the music notes represent how loud I could hear the call or noise. If it was a big note it means I heard it well, and a small note means I heard it barely at all. It was windy and there was a lot of noise at the golf course which made it hard to hear calls. Sounds seem to come from all locations, and exactly trying to find where the sounds were made it difficult. Luckily we could often see the birds so it made it easier to make them down.

Time: 2-3:30pm
Weather: Fully overcast, constant rain. 10 mph winds from the North.
Place: Centennial Woods (Fully forested, denseish forest), and some suburban landscape (Hospital/Jeffords area), residential areas.

Birds:
2 Northern Cardinals
2 Brown Creeper
2 Barred Owls
2 Black-capped Chickadee
1 Winter Wren
1 White-breasted Nuthatch
1 American Robin
2 Song Sparrow
6 Ring-billed Gull

Place: Burlington (Open ‘fields’ (golf course), swampy areas, residential areas)
Time: 2-330pm
Temperature: 30 degrees (19 degrees with windchill)
Wind: 12 mph winds. Mainly coming from the Northwest.
Weather: Partly cloudy to fully cloudy the entire time

It was a pretty cold day, with a strong wind constantly blowing and it being overcast led it to staying constantly cold. The occasional times the sun came out made it nicer outside. We walked along the UVM campus right next to the Redstone pines, into redstone campus and then onto the golf course that is right next to campus. We mainly walked around the golf course and that is where we saw a majority of our birds. We saw multiple full year round species like the American Crow, Common Raven, and Northern Cardinal. Which makes sense considering they are very adaptable to the climates they are in. Some may migrate to newer locations but often stay in similar areas. This is due to the availability of food resources, crows/ravens will eat just about anything (roadkill, food from people, etc.) Northern Cardinals are another non-migratory species, they primarily feed on seeds (and people often put up bird feeders during the winter as well), and they also can feed on the seeds of pines when they drop their cones. We also saw a couple of facultative migrants; like the Canada Goose, and the Golden-crowned Kinglet. The Canada goose migrates based on ice-cover, meaning if there is little ice cover they probably will stay in Burlington year round. Canada Geese will migrate to the southern midwest and a bit into Mexico. Although only about 20% of Golden-crowned Kinglets may stay in Burlington, the rest will fly down to southern New Hampshire/Long Island and like all of the midwest for their wintering grounds. The thing that draws species like the Golden-crowned Kinglets will migrate due to a change in insect population as they are primarily insect eaters. We did see a couple obligate migrants like the Eastenr Phoebe, Great Egret, and Turkey Vultures (although that is changing due to the environment getting warmer). An advantage to coming to Burlington in April is that sometimes it we do get a really warm spring where everything blooms immediately and food is plentiful, but the disadvantage of birds arriving in early April is cold snaps (like the one we are in currently) where it gets bitterly cold for a couple days to even potentially a weak. This can cause birds that aren’t prepared for this weather to die or potentially starve depending on the species and how long the cold snap lasts.

Mini activity:

Ring-billed Gull- 155 miles
American Robin- 1,114 miles
Mallard- 730 miles
Canada Goose- 1002 miles
Turkey Vulture (from year round range) - 172 miles
Black Vulture (from year round range) - 299 miles
Eastern Phoebe - 659 miles
Golden-crowned Kinglet- 135 miles
Pileated Woodpecker (here year round) - 0 miles
American Crow (here year round) - 0 miles
Fish Crow (from year round range) - 253 miles
Northern Cardinal (here year round) - 0 miles
Great Egret- 2000 miles
Red-breasted Nuthatch- 889 miles
Dark-eyed Junco- 438 miles
Common Raven (here year round)- 0 miles

Total Miles: 7, 806 miles traveled by all birds. That's a lot of miles! Insane how much they travel.

Place: Burlington Waterfront (residential/waterfront/kinda urban?? (a lot of older buildings and railways). Shoreline/rocky/beach-like.
Time: 2-330pm
Temperature: 29 degrees (20 degrees with windchill)
Wind: 5mph with some gusts. Mainly coming from the North.
Weather: Sunny with little to no clouds.

It was a fairly cold day today on the waterfront. There was only one other person with us (besides Professor Allan and the TA). Fairly strong gusts kept blowing but with sun out it made it bearable to stay out there. We walked along the Burlington Bike path heading South, encountering a variety of human habitats. The area was mostly run down ship yards(for trains and boats), apartment buildings, and small parks that were scattered alongside the path. We saw numerous waterfowl, including nearly one hundred Ring-billed Gulls. These gulls were constantly interacting with each other (and they were quite noisy!), these talks could be fake mating rituals in order to ‘practice’ with another female, to alert other gulls where they were, and also to tell other gulls that ‘you are getting too close to me for comfort.’ On occasion they would throw their head back (this was done by a couple of species) possibly as a sign of intimidation/mating ritual. I think some of the birds' circadian rhythms were thrown off today due to the cold weather, as very few song birds were seen throughout the time we were outside. This cold weather also left numerous species (Ring-billed Gull, and Mallards mainly) just sitting there, with them usually laying down or not moving very often (or tucking their bill/leg into their feathers) in order to stay warm. They were also often trying to keep pointed into the wind in order to stay warm. The male Mallards had bright plumage that was usually only useful in attracting a mate, this is opposite to the female who had brown feathers that are used in order to make sure they aren’t seen by predators (very useful if you have a nest and you need to look after it). We even saw some of the Mallard males chasing one another away from a female, signaling it seems to be almost time for breeding season. This plays into their circannual rhythm as even though it was such a cold day they still had that drive.
Although there weren’t a lot of songbirds out we still did the pishing activity. We did manage to drag in a couple of groups of birds (mainly European Starlings and Northern Cardinals). We think this is due to the fact that birds may just be curious about the noise and want to investigate, also since in cold weather birds may also nest together in multi-species roosts and since it sounds like a Chickadee (and Chickadees are often found in these large roosts) will bring other birds with it as it is attracted to the pishing noise. There are multiple other theories as to why people think pishing works, whether it be that it could possibly sound like a noise an insect would make, or a noise that birds use to scare away predators (Source 1).

Source One for pishing: https://www.thespruce.com/pishing-to-attract-birds-386698#:~:text=Attract%20Birds%20in%20the%20Field&text=The%20raspy%2C%20rough%20quality%20of,ready%20to%20chase%20an%20intruder.

Out from: 2pm-3:30pm
Weather: 21 degrees, 100% overcast, wind coming from the North around 10 mph
Habitat: Maily forested with some residential area.

For today's excursion with the group it was mostly in Centennial woods today. The entire thing went from 2 to 3:30. Overall it was a chilly day, with the temperature staying at twenty one degrees, but there was a wind chill involved which brought the temperature down to nine degrees. The wind varied from constant to more like gusts probably around ten miles per hour, the wind was mostly coming from the North. It was hundred percent overcast with no sun really being seen. Centennial is generally a pretty heavy pine stand (primarily Eastern white Pines) with some deciduous trees underneath, throughout the time we spent in Centennial and Davis area we saw eleven species of birds overall.
Throughout most of the trek there weren't a whole lot of birds to be seen, we did hear the distant calls of birds on occasion but we never saw anything super close for a while. This may be due to the fact Burlington seemed to get another cold snap which caused some of the food resources to dry up. All throughout centennial there were cavities in both living and dead trees, these could either be for living/nesting in or for food purposes. The birds that stay in Burlington are primarily eating seeds and fruits, some insects but not that many. During the day I feel like birds are often just trying to find food as currently it isn’t breeding season so they aren’t doing that, and it being this cold I feel like they’d want to keep moving to avoid freezing. This may also depend on the day because on very cold days they may just want to stay in their nest to avoid putting themselves in a situation where they may die or get injured, but on warmer days they resume their normal duties. Most of the birds we saw in Centennial are more generalist species, so currently their diet would differ from when food is more abundant (they would eat more insects but since there aren’t any leaves there aren't that many bugs to feed on). Most species will stay in forested areas overnight, it offers them protection from the elements as trees can keep wind gusts lower. Forests are usually also slightly warmer than open fields, and give protection from snow. The amount of cavities seem to point to more birds staying in the Centennial forest area. A lot of birds when it gets cold (depending on the species) will to fluff up their feathers and potentially try and huddle together to stay warm.
When we walked through centennial we hit a stick on five snags but no wildlife ever showed itself when we did that. You could tell that certain snags were older because they would have a lot of cavities in them, and in a lot of those areas where we saw a lot of cavities we saw more birds. Taller snags usually had more cavities, but there were some smaller ones with a lot of cavities as well. We did see a couple larger cavities which we assumed were for living in (they also had cleaner edges) compared to the feeding cavities (which usually had rougher entrances). The snag cavities provide protection from the elements. Snags were all throughout Centennial, and to map them out would just about be the entire thing lmao, as there were lots of them.

For today's excursion I participated in the field trip led by the TAs in ornithology. Overall it was a fairly okay day outside. With it being 100% overcast and a constant light snow throughout the ninety minutes we were out. We were out from two to three thirty and recorded twelve different species of birds, with some interesting variety among them. The temperature was a constant twenty eight degrees fahrenheit with little to no wind which made it a better experience. Even though we walked all across campus: from Aiken to the medical center all the way to Redstone, a lot of the birds we saw were around Redstone.
While walking in redstone we saw A LOT of Robins flying around, and they had a very interesting flight style. They seem to have an undulating flight pattern, where they’d flap their wings to gain a bit of altitude then drop again, but other times they would fly straight without any dipping. Maybe it was because of all the food they were acting so peculiar. Most of the birds we saw on campus had elliptical shaped wings, which are used for quick movements. This makes sense in the residential area UVM is based in, as quick movements are needed for all the obstacles that are often in the birds' way (whether that be buildings, plant matter, cars, etc). Flight patterns you can use to identify a group of birds, some of them you could probably be identified solely on flight patterns if it is incredibly unique, but I think flight patterns more narrow it down to a group of birds where you then can use other characteristics to narrow it down to a specific bird. The flight characteristics can help you identify a group or a species of bird because on many interesting flight ideas: the way it flies (direct flight, gliding, soaring, etc), and usually the flight pattern is influenced by the birds wing shape as since most hawks and vultures have fairly broad (passive soaring wings) wings which influence them to often be soaring above. Similarly, a lot of songbirds have elliptical wings which are perfect for fast maneuvering which you can see with how fast they move, and the fact they use undulating flight patterns where they need to constantly flag and then fold them in in order to create the rapid movements.
The medical center/central area had little to no birds, and I theorize it is because of the constant traffic that happens in that area. Cars are constantly driving to and away from the medical center, and central is a huge walkway for students which is also more human traffic which could keep the birds away. It would most likely be better to look for birds earlier in the morning or when it is warmer out in order to get less human/car traffic involved.
The bird sketch activity is a very interesting idea and showed me just how many identifying characteristics there are on a single bird. Some birds are a lot more simple to identify than others (whether that be due to simple coloration or bright markings that immediately draw the eye too). Overall this activity was a very smart idea and really got me thinking at bird characteristics you may see just while out looking around for things.