Wheeler Nature Park
For this journal entry, I went out birding on April 19th, 2019 at Wheeler Nature Park in South Burlington. It was late afternoon on a warm and sunny day, right before the weather changed to rain. This site was great because it had a little of everything. The first part of the walk is an open field with a couple individual trees scattered throughout. On one of these trees in the field is where I saw the Eastern Bluebird. Beyond the field the path meets the woods, first a cluster of Red Cedar, where I heard a loud bird song that I didn't know. I found the bird singing in one of the Red Cedar trees and didn't recognize it. At home, I was able to identify it as a Field Sparrow with a distinctive song that sounds like a ping pong ball bouncing and then getting faster. Beyond the scrubby wood's edge is a path that goes passed a large Red Oak tree and eventually opens up into a sugarbush. In the sugarbush I could hear a loud Northern Cardinal and I walked up off the path in its direction. I could see a lot of bird activity in one area so I sat and listened to the various sounds. I could tell a little beyond where I was sitting was another edge area but I was in the woods. Here I saw the Northern Cardinal that was singing, as well as a bird I couldn't identify (later I got a better look at what I think was the same bird- Hermit Thrush), I could hear several Black-capped Chickadees, and a White-throated Sparrow in the distance.
As the trail moved on, it went alongside what seemed like a big, manicured field, almost like a golf course, behind a housing development. I heard a bustle of high pitched birds that I followed the sound of, through a wet area, and finally could see the flash of yellow in the bushes where the noise was coming from. It was a group of American Goldfinch. I saw another cardinal, a Blue Jay, several American Robin, and a White-throated sparrow in this area. Back on the trail, I heard and saw a Brown Creeper and got a good look at the Hermit Thrush. Following the trail down and around, I came out in a wetland and on the edge of that came across several Ruby-crowned Kinglets moving quickly among some shrubs. There seemed to be a lot of them but they didn't stay in one place long. The loop ended the way it began and I even saw the Eastern Bluebird again out in the field!
As far as nesting or breeding behavior is concerned, one major thing that I observed was singing. Whether for territory or to get a female's attention, I heard some birds singing loud songs over and over. Particularly the Northern Cardinal and the Field Sparrow. I wasn't sure where Northern Cardinals nested and I didn't witness any nesting behavior but I read that they (mostly the female) build a cup nest wedged into the fork of a tree, not too high off the ground. They might travel around together to choose the nest site. Though I didn't see a female on this birding trip, I have been seeing pairs of them regularly. As for the the Ruby-crowned Kinglets, while I was watching them they weren't singing and there were several of them around. I saw the ruby on the head of one of them clearly, but I couldn't tell with the others so I wasn't sure if they were a mixed group or not. They were also moving around a lot but it seemed more like feeding behavior than nesting or mate selection. According to the Cornell website, the female makes the nest high up in trees, so high that not a lot is known about their nesting behavior. The ones I saw were in low shrubs, about eye level, so likely they were just eating. I think of the Black-capped Chickadee as a cavity dweller, although while watching them I didn't see any go in or out of a hole. Some were singing, which could have been marking their territory bounds, and then one that I watched for a while was pruning itself inside a shrubby thicket. Reading about their nesting process, the female chooses the site but they both help excavate it. I have never seen a chickadee excavating a hole but I would love to. I wonder if there is a specific time of day that they would typically work on that or if it is just related to the time of year or mate selection. It is interesting that those three different birds all nest in such different spots in the woods. Northern Cardinal is fairly low to the ground, 1-15 feet, Black-capped Chickadee is in a tree from ground level to around 60 feet, and the tiny little Ruby-crowned Kinglet could be 100 feet up in a nest in a tree.
Comentarios
Añade un comentario