Diario de chloesardonis

I went outside for my birding walk around 1:00 PM on a chilly afternoon. It was about ten degrees with a breeze and it was relatively gray outside with occasional brightening of the sky. As I went outside, I hear the sound of crows near my house. I spotted one in a tree in the field across the road from my house and saw two more in flight. Before I could get a photo of it, the first one took off too, cawing as it left the tree. From my house, I started the same direction I did for my last excursion, but this time went straight passed my neighbors house and didn't cut down through the field towards the swampier area, but stayed on the small dead-end road that goes to the Scragg Mountain trailhead.

Scragg Mountain is in the Northfield Mountain Range, just north of the gap that goes between Roxbury and Warren. I was on the Northfield, or Eastern, side. The elevation of the trailhead, I believe, is approximately 1800 feet, and it is definitely colder and snowier than the Champlain Valley. I'm not sure how that translates to bird sightings exactly, but I definitely haven't seen as many species as some of my classmates, although I know there are plenty species that will be here shortly if they aren't yet. There is a brook down below the trail and it is wooded on either side of the trail. Mixed hardwoods with some softwoods mixed in, and the composition changes as you get higher. There is one open field area mid-way up that I walked up passed and there is usually bird activity there, where it is open but up against large tracts of woods.

Despite the terrain, there are some species I can count on seeing, like the Black-capped Chickadee. What a rugged little bird. The Common Redpoll was a species I didn't know until I posted it last time, but I saw it again. I only saw one individual, as opposed to several pecking around on the ground. This one was was in a tree and the only reason I noticed it was because I was zoomed in with my camera trying to get a photo of a Hairy Woodpecker. The Common Redpoll was in a branch of a hardwood tree working on its feathers. It seemed to be pretty puffed up and it kept putting its head down into its breast, preening I think. I also noticed a Black-capped Chickadee messing with its feathers quite a bit. I assume this is something that might help in winter, either fluffing up to add insulation, or making sure the feathers are all zipped up, making a solid little outer jacket. As well as this, during the night I imagine it could slow itself down and use its ability to go into a torpor state as a way to make it through nights. I know Black-capped Chickadees cache seeds around but I imagine it could be challenging this time of year, while it is still really cold but new food sources haven't really begun. I imagine they get a little more desperate and eat from sources that are not their favorite or not as nutritionally dense, but are available, as well as seeds from feeders. As for where they sleep, I didn't find any in snags but I think they are cavity dwellers. Sleeping inside a tree at night both serves to shelter it from the weather and keep it safer, at least from some predators.

I wasn't aware of the Common Redpoll's feed choices so I read about it on the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. They eat very small seeds because they have very small bills. This time of year, they are likely eating seeds from birches and alders but they also eat seeds from fields which might explain why I saw the flock of them pecking around on the ground last February. I also read on the website that they sometimes spend the night in snow tunnels because it is so much warmer underneath the snow! They are typically a high elevation woods bird that breeds in the far North, so it makes sense that it is one of the hardy birds I see up here on my winter mountain walk.

The Hairy Woodpecker I heard before I saw because as I was walking I heard the drumming sound. At least I think it was a Hairy Woodpecker because I have been seeing and hearing them a lot this last month. The bird I observed was a female, and I'm not sure if females also drum or not, but likely I didn't see the drummer and instead saw a busily feeding female. She was moving up and around a tree. She stuck on a spot where the tree branched that I could noticeably see holes forming which made me think she wasn't the only one lingering on that spot. Besides that spot, though, she circled all over and then would fly to another tree and continue investigating it for food. The whole time I watched her, it didn't seem like she took a break at all. Besides fluffing feathers, it seems like eating a lot is another way that birds get through this season. I imagine she is finding insects in the tree which seems like a pretty protein rich food source for the winter. Her ability to get into a tree where insects overwinter is probably why she can stay so active here during the winter. Other insect eaters probably have to figure other food sources out during the winter when they aren't so readily available.

I noted many snags on my walk, many dead trees and dead limbs. I found one tree that had been torn apart by a Pileated Woodpecker. I didn't see any activity in any holes or cavities when I tapped on the tree but maybe it was my timing, or maybe I was too loud on my snowshoes headed up the trail. It is nice that woodpeckers not only can get themselves high-quality feed for winter, but they also make important winter spots for other animals, both for sleeping and for hiding food.

On March 15, 2019, I went outside to walk around and see what birds I could see. It was around 5 in the evening and I was at a property that is hundreds of conserved acres with a house on it. Behind the house is a pond, which was still frozen over even though there was no snow on the ground. When I parked in the driveway, there were American Robins everywhere pecking at the ground and making a lot of sounds. I could hear Red-winged Blackbirds near the pond so when I went out to find birds, that is where I headed.

On my way to the pond, there were some shrubs and I could hear a bird jumping around between branches. Once I spotted it, I could tell it was a sparrow but I am not great at telling them apart. Later on my walk I heard a song sparrow, so it made me think that might have been what it was but I can’t be sure. This sparrow had brown and white and it had a line by its eye. That was the main detail I could see but I believe that is a characteristic shared by other sparrow species. Whatever it was, I watched it for a while in the shrub. It moved around a lot and was not easy to see in its low, fairly dense, deciduous shrub. Meanwhile, while watching the sparrow, I became aware of a loud chorus of Red-winged Blackbirds. More than one for sure, I found one in my zoom high up in a tree and watched it call. I could hear a response, or at least another call, coming from across the pond and I found another one there. The longer I sat watching them, though, the more calls I heard and noticed a small tree on an island on the pond with 4 of them on it. Then I saw another one fly across to a different tree, and then another, and then I realized how loud the chorus had gotten of Red-winged blackbird calls. It was all I could hear, with the exception of one Song Sparrow song, the whole time I was anywhere near the pond. All of the Red-winged Blackbirds that I saw were males, as they had the bright wings, and they were all very obvious and loud. I’m not sure if this behavior is the beginning of their breeding season and they are competing with each other or if they were just in a flock.

In looking at the plumage differences between Red-Winged Blackbird and, let’s call it a Song Sparrow for comparisons sake, the Song Sparrow seems well ‘dressed’ for being in shrubs and trees and not be easily picked out. Looking through the spaces between branches, white and brown are kind of what you see, and the speckles on the bird seem to work with the way the branches are moving in the wind, or have dried leaves or old seeds or something on them. The bird isn’t easy to pick out in that habitat and I imagine they spend a lot of time in and among trees and shrubs. The Red-winged Blackbird seems less obvious to me, as the bright color on the males’ wings seems to make them easy to pick out. They are a bird I tend to see more out in the open in wet areas, and a dark pond or swamp back ground could make sense with the black body color, so perhaps the red wings help in some mating way, or maybe there is a positive reason to stand out. They are very loud with their call in the open so it seems like they aren’t afraid to be noticed. Also, when they call they hold their wings in such a way that the red really stands out. I would assume it is to attract a mate because I’m not sure what other purpose it would serve.

As I walked away from the pond, through a field towards woods, I saw a Black-Capped Chickadee perched in a tree, though I didn’t hear it sing at all and it didn’t appear to be foraging or anything like that, just perched. I figured it was resting, or scouting, because it was just looking around perched on a branch. Also, being evening time, it seemed like maybe a less active time for it. I imagine they are pretty active finding food a lot of the day, but maybe rest in the evening and keep an eye out before night falls. Also, the end of winter is probably a harder time to find food than other times as they may have exhausted their food sources but, where I was, there was no snow so maybe they gained access to various seeds or leftover stuff in fields that had been covered for the winter. Since the weather was warmer as well, maybe their calorie requirements go down a little.

I tried to make the pish sound to that resting Black-capped Chickadee and it didn’t illicit a response. In other occasions since then I have tried to make the sound and so far none have come closer to me as a result. Some have flown away but it didn’t appear directly related to the sound I was making. I’m not sure what about that sound would be interesting to them, or scary, but it could mimic a sound another animal makes and they come to investigate or get away from, or if it is a positive response, maybe it sounds like a noise a bird would make in the nest. I know they are a communicative bird and, especially in winter, seem fairly curious. Maybe they deem it their job to look into a sound like that and report back.