Diario de abaigealcarroll

Abaigeal Carroll
Date: May 7, 2023
Start time: 5:30pm
End time: 7:00 pm
Location: Winooski
Weather: Blue skies, slightly cloudy
Temp: 55 degrees F
Wind: 8 mph, NW
Precipitation: no precip
Habitats: Older Oak and pine forest, aquatic (freshwater)

Abaigeal Carroll
Date: April 15, 2023
Start time: 8:00am
End time: 10:30am
Location: Salmon Hole, Winooski
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 61 degrees F
Wind: 5 mph, NE
Precipitation: no precip
Habitats: Older pine forest, reservoir of water

This excursion was extremely successful! I think it was because I went earlier in the morning and instead of walking really far, I would walk a few steps and stop to listen to the birds and this allowed me to notice a lot more that I would usually just pass by. I was practicing my ability to decipher what bird I am hearing based on how it sounds. I have gotten so much better especially when I quiz myself using bird apps like Merlin. I noticed which specific bird calls trip me up because they sound similar to others. For example, the Northern Cardinal and the Carolina Wren sound similar in my head. I hear Northern Cardinals very often but I didn’t think I heard Carolina Wrens often at all. It turns out a call that I thought was a Northern Cardinal was actually a Carolina Wren! I only knew this because I used the Merlin Bird app and Carolina Wren had popped up which was really exciting.
The most exciting sighting on my excursion was a Belted Kingfisher. I saw a large bird fly over the water and I thought I heard the trill of a kingfisher. I saw it land in a tree across the water from me and I put my binoculars up to look. I was so excited to see the Belted Kingfisher in a tree looking down at the water. The wind was blowing its feathers. It was much bigger than I was expecting them to be. I had the opportunity to observe a Woodland Kingfisher in Botswana and they were much smaller than the Belted Kingfisher I saw here. In terms of nesting, I would think that the Belted Kingfisher is nesting near the water although I didn’t see them in their nest. After doing some research, I learned that they nest in earthen banks near water.
I also heard many Song Sparrows which have a very different type of nest. They build nests on the ground in shrubs or low trees and they do return to previous nests that they have built before. It appears that these birds are using small twigs and grass to build their nest. To acquire these materials songbirds will look anywhere from trees and branches to manmade materials like plastic.

Some observations!

Abaigeal Carroll
Date: March 29, 2023
Start time: 2:15pm
End time: 3:20 pm
Location: Oakledge Park
Weather: Blue skies, slightly cloudy
Temp: 48 degrees F
Wind: 14 mph, NW
Precipitation: no precip
Habitats: Older Oak and pine forest, aquatic (freshwater)

Today on my bountiful bird walk I saw some new birds that I have yet to spot before! I challenged myself to try to spot the differences between the “little brown streaky birds” that I saw. I tried to notice the differences between the House Sparrow and the House Finch. I noticed that the House Sparrow had a skinnier beak as opposed to the house finch’s more broad beak that was lighter in color. Also House Sparrows have noticeably darker areas around the head while House Finches have more redness on their belly. I was really excited to see a Song Sparrow today and hear its song! They had quite a streaky nature to their call and I picked up on their call because of their trill notes. I was able to observe several White-breasted nuthatches interacting with each other. They were hanging on to the sides of trees in a really interesting manner and almost seemed able to hop along the tree vertically. They were also making 2 different sounds and seemed like they were talking to each other. As I was observing the White-breasted Nuthatch, I heard a super loud call from a Tufted Titmouse right next to where I was standing but I couldn’t see it.
I always noticed Black-capped Chickadees hanging out in trees together. They were also close to the water and I observed one eating some berries from a tree. There was also a Herring Gull that kept flying over me and calling out to another one that was in the distance. Perhaps it was looking for food. The most exciting observation that happened on this excursion was seeing a female and male Common Merganser! I was so excited when I looked out at the water and could see them bobbing up and down in the water. At first I thought they could be Mallards or Common Loons because I have seen them here before. I was overjoyed when I looked through my binoculars and could see that they were most definitely Common Mergansers. The first clue that helped me in my identification was the female’s brown color and crest. I couldn’t really notice any green on the male, perhaps it was the way the light was hitting him, but I could see how white his body was. They also have quite a long pointed beak with a little bit of black pigment at the end.
On the topic of migration, the White-breasted Nuthatch stays in Burlington all year and has some adaptations in order to do so. These birds stay warm by trapping pockets of air around their bodies. They can also huddle together in trees. Other birds like the Canada Goose are migrants and fly South to their non-breeding sites to avoid the cold. They migrate back North in April and May so it was a little early to see them.

Abaigeal Carroll
Date: March 25, 2023
Start time: 11:30pm
End time: 1:00pm
Location: Park in North Grafton, Massachusetts
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 43 degrees F
Wind: 5 mph, NE
Precipitation: no precip
Habitats: Older Oak and pine forest

This has been the most successful birding excursion yet! I think it was because I was in Massachusetts where it is a little warmer than Vermont. I definitely noticed that it was much easier to identify sounds than it has been previously. The first birds I noticed were a few House Sparrows flying around and landing in a tree. I noticed that I always noticed the American Robin on the ground whereas I always noticed birds like the Tufted Titmouse or the Black-capped Chickadee were on small branches of trees. I have observed Mallards a few times now and I have always observed them where there is one female and one male. They are also usually on the sides of the river instead of the middle unless they are trying to hunt.
It is interesting how you can tell what kind of bird some birds are from so far away but others are so hard to decipher even with binoculars. Birds like the Tufted Titmouse that has a tuft or a crest are specifically easy for me to decipher from far away because the tuft really stands out. Similarly, birds that have bright or iridescent colors like the Mallard or the male Northern Cardinal are quite easy to pick out from far away.
The smaller birds were definitely interacting much more than the bigger birds. They were found much more often in trees together and would communicate by flapping their wings or by calling. I was lucky enough to witness a call and response a few times which I thought was very neat. The Northern Cardinal has bright red plumage but they are born a dull brownish yellow. On the other hand, Blue Jays have soft grey or bluish plumage and a white accent highlighting their wings. Blue jays have distinctive black markings around their eyes white Northern Cardinals do not. Pondering this as a possible evolutionary advantage, this could have made it easier for the opposite general to quickly identify the opposite sex since the colors stand out. Focusing on an individual bird, the Black-capped Chickadee was just resting in a tree which makes sense because we are coming out of the winter season and entering the spring season where there should be more plentiful food available and the Black-capped Chickadee needs to spend less time foraging.

Abaigeal Carroll
Date: March 1, 2023
Start time: 1:30pm
End time: 2:47pm
Location: Oakledge Park
Weather: Cloudy, overcast, not very sunny but a lot of light was reflecting off the snow
Temp: 39 degrees F
Wind: 5 mph, NE
Precipitation: no precip
Habitats: Older Oak and pine forest, aquatic (freshwater)

Today my birding efforts were not very successful. I didn’t see many birds but I heard a lot of them. The problem is as soon as I would try to record them on iNaturalist, they would stop making sound! I heard a Mourning Dove taking off very clearly but wasn’t fast enough to record the sound. The first sound I was able to record was a Pileated Woodpecker pounding on a tree. I knew it was a Pileated Woodpecker because I could see the red tuft on its head and quite large body even from far away. Through my binoculars I could see that it was using its large feet to grip onto a tree branch and pound away at the tree. The tree appeared to be an oak. When I walked closer to the water I saw 10 Mallards. I thought it was interesting how different female and male Mallards are, I always thought they were different species. Male Mallards have a bright green head which is always easy to distinguish from far away. I usually see them with females who have a brown body and spots with orange feet. As I was observing this group of birds I was lucky enough to see the bright blue underwing of the female. They were floating right next to the shore looking for any crustaceans or small fish that they could catch.
Although I couldn’t see many birds, I heard many. One I heard very clearly was the White-breasted Nuthatch. This sound was easy to pick out since it is a very nasally sound that is hard to mistake. I thought it was interesting how at first I thought I couldn’t hear any birds but as soon as I stopped walking and was very quiet, I realized that there were so many bird sounds around me. Most of them were very quiet and in the distance but birds with very specific calls such as the Tufted Titmouse and the Northern Cardinal are very easy to distinguish even when their calls are very quiet. On this birding adventure I focused on noticing the differences between females and males. Northern Cardinals are also a unique species to notice differences in the sexes. Males are red all over with a black area around the beak. The females have a duller red color and no black around their beak. They both have a tuft on the top of their head.
Using this week’s prompt, I noticed how birds use different aspects of evolution and ecology to get through the winter. I noticed that the birds I saw, especially the Tufted Titmouse, had a much rounder physique than I have noticed in other seasons. This is probably because they stock up on more food so they can store fat throughout the winter. I didn’t see many birds flying around, I saw all of them perched in a tree meaning they are budgeting their time by staying stagnant and not using up energy.

Abaigeal Carroll
Date: Feb 11, 2023
Start time: 9:30a
End time:11:00a
Location: Oakledge Park
Weather: Clear blue skies, full sun, quite windy
Temp: 27 degrees F
Wind: 6.5 mph, NW
Precipitation: no precip
Habitats: Older Oak and pine forest, aquatic (freshwater)
My excursion occurred on an icy morning at Oakledge park. It was actually kind of harder than I thought to be quiet enough to hear bird calls when we were walking on the crunchy ice. It seemed like as soon as I would hear a bird call and stop walking to listen, they would stop calling! The first bird and by far most abundant was the Rock Pigeon which was commonly seen on telephone lines and in groups while birds like the Common Raven were seen by themselves. The Tufted Titmouse and Black-capped Chickadee were the easiest for me to hear and pick up on their call. I heard them usually calling at the same time and both in the forested area. Their calls would sound and then pause for a few moments to resume again.
As I continued to walk through Oakledge park I entered the area next to Lake Champlain. This habitat is aquatic and consists of sandy soils. I was able to decipher 10 Mallard ducks floating in the water about 30 feet from land. When I returned back to the parking lot, I saw a Common Raven on a light post. It took me a second to be able to decipher if it was a Common Raven or an American Crow since they look so similar. What helped me in my identification was the Common Raven was quite large especially when it flew down to the ground and opened its wings. It had quite a curved beak making it more likely that it was a Common Raven than an American Crow. The Common Raven also had a pointed tail which I noticed when it flew and could distinguish from the squared off tail of the American Crow. While looking through my binoculars, I was even able to see the throat area of the bird up close which was a little puffy. The Common Raven has a ruff of feathers under the throat where the American Crow has a very smooth throat area.
When I first started my excursion, I was having pretty good luck hearing and seeing birds since there was a patch of forest that I was exploring. The birds that I observed here were the Tufted Titmouse and the White-capped Chickadee. I was able to observe their flight pattern a little but they really only flew from tree to tree. The Tufted Titmouse had quite an erratic flight pattern which was interesting to watch. When they would jump into flight, their wings would extend forwards and swoop through the air so they could go upwards but not necessarily forwards. I noticed the tuft on their head would point backwards and kind of sink into their head a little bit. They also would spread their feathers on their tail a little bit before landing I suppose to help with slowing speed before landing. Comparing this flight pattern to the White-capped Chickadee was very fun! Their flight pattern seemed to be a little slower and used to hop from tree branch to tree branch. When they hopped off the branch, their tail would point downwards and their wings would flap very fast, definitely faster than the Tufted Titmouse but seemingly with less power behind them. The Black-capped Chickadee was found in smaller trees, shorter trees that were closer to the ground while the Tufted Titmouse was found in larger Oak trees.
As time went on, I had a harder time finding birds perhaps because we entered into an area with less woodland. This is where I saw birds such as the Rock Pigeon. I definitely noticed that the later in the day it became, the harder it was to see birds since they are definitely more active in the early morning. It was also quite windy which probably made it harder to see birds.