FJ 4

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.

Publicado el abril 5, 2021 01:35 TARDE por jridge1821