Field Journal #3

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.

Publicado el marzo 22, 2021 08:01 TARDE por