Centennial Friends!

At 4:00 PM Tuesday afternoon, I made my way to Centennial Woods. It was about 40 degrees out and an overcast sky framed the scene of the adventure to come. Although there was not much diversity regarding the species sighted, a day birding is never a day wasted! Black-capped Chickadees welcomed me as soon as I stepped foot on a path next to a field that housed last season’s goldenrods. They perched in pines above and hid in shrubs closer to the ground. Higher in the sky, members of the American Crow Flock soared in straight lines across the sky. Their nearly constant flapping as well as their coarse throaty calls gave them away.

It is difficult to determine exactly how many of each of the viewed species were observed because of the calls making up. Over the course of about two hours, approximately 20 Black-capped Chickadees were observed but perhaps some of these were repeats because of the inability to confidently locate their movements in the trees and shrubs. Since it was near dusk, I would draw the conclusion that the Chickadees were planning on overnighting among the pines from which I heard them. I have spent some time learning about Chickadee habits and it seems as though they either nestle on an evergreen branch or in a cavity. Although I did not see exactly where they stayed for the night when they became quiet, other tells in the mornings (bent tails) could potentially be an indicator.

At this time of the evening, the Chickadees were hiding for the night and not actively (not obviously anyway) returning to their caches and eating.

I found several snags with a multitude of cavities in them. Each time I found one, I observed it for several minutes, then went over to the snag and tapped on it. None of the 3 snags that I encountered and tapped had anyone flutter away from my disturbance. Some of the cavities looked as though they were just woodpecker feeding spots while others looked (from my angle on the ground) as though they were deeper (perhaps nesting) holes.

Publicado el 11 de marzo de 2020 a las 05:40 PM por claudia-sacks