UVM Ornithology Journal Entry #5

The first two Wild Turkeys I saw were located over the edge of the bank of one of the corn fields. I heard scratching on the bank and when I looked over I saw a hen feeding away from me. As I watched the hen I saw a tom come out from over the bank and began strutting behind the hen following her as she ate. The second flock I saw when I got back to the farm. I noticed two hens appear on the edge of the field across the road. While watching them through a spotting scope I noticed one jake come out of the tree line strutting and two more appeared a few second after not strutting. The initial Jake continued to strut while the two hens and other two jakes continued to strut. This behavior is typical as the dominate jake is expressing his dominance over the other jakes, It is likely that the jakes were with more hens than the tom as singular toms commonly get run off from larger flocks of hens by groups of jakes teaming up against them.

As I was walking along an old logging trail next to a clear cut I observed two Dark-eyed Junco moving through the brush alongside the trail. They did not appear to be foraging but rather they appeared to be curious of my presence.

As I walk walking down a bank into a hemlock forest I observed a singular male pileated woodpecker flying through the woods headed uphill. It immediately flew out of sight and I did not follow it. When I got back to the farm as I was walking up the bank a male and a female pileated woodpecker flew over the yard and landed in a dead ash tree on the edge of the yard.

When I was walking down the road towards the wooded section of the property I noticed a red-tailed hawk flying over the wooded section towards the top of the mountain. It flew over the ridge out of sight and I did not see it again.

When I walked down the road from one of the upper fields into the lower main field which had been flooded with built up water from snow run off three wood ducks busted from the standing water on the edge of the field. From what I observed it appeared it was two drakes and one hen.

Over the course of this 90 minute bird walk I recorded 8 observation of American crow. The possibility does exist that these observations were of the same birds at different points. The first three crows I saw when I arrived were in a field across the road feeding. As I was walking to the woods I saw two more fly overhead landing in the trees in the forested section of the property. While I was hiking in the woods I heard one crow vocalization. When I returned from the bird walk two crows were still in the field across the road from the farm. Whether or not they were the same bird I do not know.

As I was walking up the main trail which is a snowmobile trail during the winter I jumped a ruffed grouse out of the thick honeysuckle over the bank. This grouse was in the same location as it was last week and was jumped at a similar time of day as well.

I recorded a total of 5 song sparrow observations two of which were in the trees next to the chicken coop as I was departing on my walk, and 3 of which were flying through the brush in a patch of honeysuckle and raspberry bushes along the top of the property at the peak which was previously clear cut in 2016.

During my 90 minute bird walk I only observed 4 black-capped chickadees which were located in a mixed wood forest along a steep hill along which runs a dirt biking trail. I do not know why I had significantly less black-capped chickadee observations this week.