Field Ornithology Journal Entry Five 05/22/2020

On May 22nd, 2020 between 6:30AM and 11:30AM I conducted a morning bird walk on the Ware Farm in Tunbridge, VT. I chose this farm because I know the property well and knew I would be able to access a range of habitats including grassland, shrubland, contiguous hardwood forest, contiguous coniferous forest, and a small wetland around where a spring emerges yielding a stream. I made this decision to maximize the amount of species to be seen in preparation for the final, as well as to gain more experience with the songs of grassland birds. To best due this throughout the morning I focused on attempting to identify a bird by song, before pursuing it for visual confirmation. The weather was sunny and the morning temperatures ranged between 60-75 degrees Fahrenheit with moderate wind swirling throughout the valley.

Throughout the morning birds were very active. I saw a total of 33 species in a variety of habitats, as well as recorded my first field sighting during ornithology of a Baltimore Oriole. The Baltimore Oriole I spotted was moving amongst the top of a box elder tree along the edge of an old pasture which transitions to a coniferous forest. One this in particularly which surprised me about this bird walk was the lack of Savannah sparrows in the grassland and shrubland habitat. Despite spending most of my morning in shrubland and grassland habitat I only recorded 7 Savannah sparrow observations but recorded 15 field sparrow observations ~25 house sparrow observation.

Another thing which surprised me this morning is that I stumbled across a wild turkey nest while moving through shrubland habitat. The wild turkey was nested in a small clump of Juniper bushed tucked under one of the branches. At the time she was sitting on 7 eggs.

Publicado el mayo 22, 2020 08:00 TARDE por thatchermorrison