Diario de miakosel

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.

Last week I embarked on my next birding adventure. I traveled through the Old North End neighborhood of Burlington towards the Intervale road. The weather was fair with temperatures are about 34 degrees and a mostly clear sky with a few clouds. I first saw an American Crow flying around by the street and onto the nearby buildings. I observed what it was doing to try to answer one of the questions for this exercise. I witnessed the bird hopping across the building’s roof and then flying onto the sidewalk in front of me and then picking at some food that appeared to be dropped on the sidewalk. I was not able to make out what sort of food it was as the bird picked it up and retreated to the roof. I would assume that birds that winter in Vermont have to rely on foraging for most of their food. I have seen many birds come to my bird feeder outside my apartment and watching this American Crow pick at food from the sidewalk seemed to support this.
I saw two Mourning Doves sitting on the telephone wires overhead. They were not moving much and seemed to be resting. They were also not vocalizing. Next, I saw a Ring-billed Gull fly overhead. I was able to identify this bird as it scooped closer to me and I was able to see the black ring around the bird’s bill. I have been noticing more Gulls away from the lake shore and deeper into my neighborhood recently. I wonder if they have been having to scavenge for food recently due to the frozen lake and this is what caused more to come inland.
When I got on to the Intervale Road I sat on a bench that overlooked the sloping forest on the edge of the Winooski River. I saw a few of White-breasted Nuthatches perching on the trees and also jumping and flying between trees. They were close enough to me I could make out their coloration and defining characteristics but all the photos I took were too blurry when zoomed in. I took a look at their plumage and noticed that they blended in with the trees. When the birds would perch on the trunk with their head down and their white underside not exposed it was hard to make them out. I then compared this to American Crow I saw earlier. The American Crow was completely black which stood out among the streets and backdrop. The American Crow was very obviously seen while the Nuthatch had some camouflaging abilities. Perhaps the American Crow has less of a need for camouflage because of their large size and omnivore diet.
I tried to pishing exercise when I was watching the White-breasted Nuthatches. Before I did any pishing I listened to how the birds were communicating. I heard one Nuthatch doing a call and then one of the other responding then hopping over. They seemed to be calling for each other to come together. I am not sure what the real reason why they were communicating about but it was nice to hear some bird chatter while watching them be so active. I did some pishing noises and it seemed to catch the birds attention. To my surprise, after I did the pishing I saw two more White-breasted Nuthatches appear. I do not know if they were reacting to me or reconnecting with the other ones. I gave it some thought to why birds react to pishing. I think they could be a few different factors and different species may react in different ways. One thought is that the pishing noise is similar to the bird’s typical vocalization and the birds will be interested in the noises as they think something is happening. Another possible reason would be the birds are unfamiliar with the noise but it has a similar rhythm to bird calls so it interests them. The birds might just be trying to figure out what the noise is and what is making it.
After spending some time observing the Nuthatches moving around in the trees I continued my walk and saw a Pileated Woodpecker at a bird feeder outside somebody’s house. This was pretty neat because I was able to get pretty close to the bird as it was focused on getting seeds out of the feeder. I also was able to identify an American Robin first by its distinctive song and then locate it based on where the song was coming from. Overall it was a fun afternoon seeing some common birds. It was nice and stop to observe the bird’s behavior and the evolutional behavior that has helped them survive the winter in Vermont.