Field Journal 7

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.

Publicado el 02 de mayo de 2023 a las 02:43 PM por abaigealcarroll