UVM Ornithology Journal Entry #2

On March 5th 2020 at 3:00PM I went out on a 90 minute bird walk in the St. George town forest at the intersection of Route 2A and Route 116 in St. George, The weather was clear and sunny, with minimal wind. The temperature was a dry 46 degrees fahrenheit. Over the course of the bird walk I traveled through a mix of forest types including really succession mixed forest, dominant hardwood forests, and coniferous forests. While on this bird walk I paid particular attentions to snags and bird behavior. While looking at and analyzing snags I saw no signs of birds utilizing cavities within the snags. Very few of the snags I saw has characteristic marks of woodpeckers using them to feed. I hypothesis this might have to do with the type and or size of the dead trees. The majority of the snags in this area are particularly small coniferous snags which had been killed off by canopy shade. During this bird walk I also paid close attention to bird behavior in an attempt to observe which may be indicative of winter survival. I expected the amount of winter behavior I observed to be limited at the temperature was in the mid 40's. With the exception of turkeys, all the bird I observed on this bird walk were in early successional edge habitat, or conifer stands. I speculate the conifer stands are used for both cover and thermoregulation, as the dense branches on conifers tend to break wind, and hold temperature better than deciduous trees during leaf off periods. I believe birds were likely using edge habitat on the edges of conifer forests to feed. Honeysuckle, and juniper bushes still had berries holding on from last fall which could provide birds a food source during these late winter months. I did also notice the birds on this day were significantly more vocal than during my first walk. This could be do to the warm temperatures indicating spring is approaching which would increase bird activity as they look to select mates and nest. For 20-30 minutes of the 90 minute walk I slowly followed the wild turkey tracks I came across in an attempt to understand what they do while they are on the ground. I was particularly surprised at how their behavior differs in the winter than in the fall. Over the course of 20 minutes I didn't;t come across a single place where they scraped up snow or leaves to forage, rather it appears the only foraging they had done was nipping buds off low saplings, berries off available bushes, and blades of grass poking through the snow. Knowing that last year was a mast year, I was surprised they didn't spend time searching for acorns like they had done in the fall. The also seems to be more mobile in the winter. The covered approximately 1/2 a miles with little meandering or feeding which seems abnormal for what I have observed of turkey's in the spring and fall. I hypothesize they were headed in the direction of a conifer stand to roost in, which is on a north facing slope in a gulley shielded from the wind. I have observed them roosting in this area before. Due to the time of day I didn't observe any roosting behavior of small birds.

Publicado el marzo 6, 2020 09:10 TARDE por thatchermorrison