Mia Kosel - Field Observation 2

I went to the lakeside path that connects the waterfront park by ECHO and north beach. I traveled this path often this summer to head to the beach but have not been down there since the winter started. I heading down around noon and spent 90 minutes strolling the path looking for birds and enjoy weather that was not freezing. It was in the high 20s but pretty sunny with some mild wind coming off the lake. I had not been done by the lake for a while so it was nice to check out the winter landscape.
I kept my eyes out for snags and saw a couple. Snags are very critical habitat elements because they provide cavities and nesting areas for birds and other small woodland critters. I noticed that some large snags had many different cavities with varying sizes. The ones I saw were off the path so I was unable to rap on it. I did notice a single Downy Woodpecker on one snag. It was not pecking but just hanging out. It wasn’t moving around much so took me a while to notice it but when I tried to take a picture with just my phone I could not get a good enough one. I did have some not great binoculars so could tell it was a Downy Woodpecker and not a Hairy Woodpecker. I kept walking the path and was enjoying the quiet atmosphere as there were not too many people on the path.
I saw five American Crows but heard quite a bit of “cawing” so it is very possible there were additional crows. I have seen so many crows recently so I have gotten very used to the constant cawing. It is very nice that I am now familiar with several common Vermont’s bird calls as every morning I get woken up from bird calls and I can now confidently identify the call. Most morning I hear a Black-capped Chickadee and American Crows, but this morning I also heard a few Northern Cardinals. The bird’s calls are increasing I have noticed with the phonological changes. I have been honing my bird call identification which came in handy on my birding expedition. I heard both a Black-capped Chickadee and an American Robin. It is possible there were several of each species but it was a bit tricky to tell. Unfortunately, at this point, my cell phone died so I could not many pictures or audio recordings but thankfully I had my field notebook so I could collect information on the birds I could ID. I was able to get a recording of the Black-capped Chickadee. When I was almost done with my birding trip I saw a European Starling fly overhead and then land on a nearby tree. It was a bit tricky to ID in flight but I was able to notice its distinctive plumage. Once the bird landed I was able to get a pretty good luck at it and confirm my in-flight ID. I also saw some other birds flying over the lake but they were a bit too far away to truly identify even with the binoculars but it was nice to see some bird activity.
I did not see any birds eating or hunting and noticed that some of the birds I saw were just sitting fairly still. This could be caused by cold weather and the time of the day. I think next time I go birding I will go closer to dawn or dusk to hopefully see more action. Overall it was a nice hour and a half of immerse nature and I enjoyed seeing the birds I could locate.

Publicado el 09 de marzo de 2019 a las 02:28 AM por miakosel