Telluride, CO; 7 March 2020

This excursion happened the morning of Saturday, 7 March 2020, in Telluride, Colorado. It started around 6:20am local time. The weather was cold, around 30˚F, and was mostly sunny with very few clouds. The sun was providing some light, but was not yet in full effect over the surrounding mountains yet. There was very little to no wind to speak of. I was located on a path next to a beaver pond and some condos. I was moving between various groves of trees along the path. There were no other people out that I could see during my excursion. I also could not get any good pictures on this excursion, but was able to get a few good audio recordings of birds’ calls.
While on my excursion, I didn’t really see any birds moving/flying around. Pretty much all the birds I encountered I could only hear, and not see. When I approached a tree where I believed I heard a bird singing from, I still could not see it. The birds I heard seemed to be in living coniferous trees. On my path, I did not come across any snags, so I didn’t get a chance to see any birds in any snags. Although I was looking for snags as well as birds, the only trees I saw were all living, with pine, spruce, and aspen trees mostly. I think the birds which I heard really only were in coniferous trees because they are the only trees with needles/leaves at this time of year. I think the birds use those needles and leaves to maintain their body heat in the frigid winter air in the elevation.
I also noticed that there seemed to be more birds that were actively singing as time went on. I think this might be because the air was continually warming up as the sun shed more and more light on the area, and the birds were waking up. Since nighttime is the coldest part of the day, I think the birds sleep during that time to maintain body heat and not spend too much energy warming themselves up when the temperature is the coldest. The birds I heard could also have been feeding, but I am not sure because I couldn’t see any of them. I’m guessing that those coniferous trees, as well as insulating heat, could also provide some food for the birds, with berries, insects, etc. This is probably different in warmer seasons, where the birds could hunt for food in more open spaces, with less or no snow on the ground. The ground now is completely covered in snow, which restricts the birds from hunting for food on or in the ground. The snow on the ground could also provide easier sight of these birds from predators.

Publicado el 07 de marzo de 2020 a las 04:23 PM por