akipp's Journal

Date - 5/8/21
Start time - 2:30 pm
End time - 5:00 pm
Location - UVM Redstone campus
Weather - 58℉, cloudy, 7 mph W wind
Habitat - suburban

Date - 4/25/21
Start time - 2:30 pm
End time - 5:00 pm
Location - Burlington Country Club
Weather - 57℉, cloudy, 4 mph SW wind
Habitat - suburban, rural
When it comes to mate selection, I heard a lot of songs between birds that were the birds trying to communicate with their mates or trying to entice another bird to be its mate. While I was out birding I also heard more songs and calls from birds than I had heard on previous trips which I think was due to more birds migrating north and trying to settle somewhere that another bird has already claimed as its territory leading to the birds trying to scare each other off or fighting to determine who gets the territory. I didn’t see any birds posturing to each other or trying to show off their plumage to entice a mate. But I did see a few American Crows working together to harass a Red-tailed Hawk, however I’m not sure whether or not that had to do with territory or food. I didn’t see any nests while I was out birding but I think some of the birds I saw such as the American Robin or Northern Cardinal would nest in short trees or in large bushes. Others like the Red-tailed Hawk or American Crow I think would nest in larger trees with the hawks deciding to nest more toward the top of the tree for easy flight in and out of the trees.
A bird I found that may have been defending a territory was a Black-capped Chickadee that seemed to have a prime territory but not the best because it was in a large bush near a small area of woods but it was just off campus near a walking path and near a person’s house. This may indicate the bird’s fitness is pretty high because it has either been able to defend this territory from others that want to come take it or the Chickadee was able to win the territory from its prior inhabitant.
When it comes to the nests themselves, I think American Robins use a combination of small twigs in their nest to give it structure and maybe some kind of tall grass to line the inside of the nest so the eggs don’t get damaged when it is time for the female to lay them. It wouldn’t have to go far to find these materials with the amount of trees around campus and small wooded areas that may be dropping sticks and ponds in the area where tall grasses can easily be found.

Start time: 2:30 pm
End time: 4:15 pm
Date: 4/18/2021
Location: Redstone Campus
Weather: 55 degrees Fahrenheit, partly cloudy, 5 mph west wind
Habitats: Suburban, college campus

Date - 4/4/2021
Start time - 3:30 pm
End time - 5 pm
Location - Burlington Country Club
Weather - 56℉, 5 mph N wind, no precipitation
Habitat - suburban

On my birding excursion, I saw a couple of year-round residents that forego migration. These species of birds all seem capable of puffing their feathers out to keep more of their body heat from escaping. Some behavioral aspects that likely allow them to live in Burlington during the winter include their rationing of physical energy, so they don’t waste energy doing unnecessary things, and I’ve seen some species of year-round residents huddled together to keep warm in the colder temperatures.
Some birds are facultative migrants, like the Red-winged Blackbird and the American Robin, and travel short distances to another region typically to breed. These species don’t travel very far, but once they feel the weather starting to get better they migrate early in order for the males to set up a territory before the others arrive and try to claim an area for themselves. Specifically, the environment is getting warmer which signals to the facultative migrants that their breeding grounds are starting to get warmer. Since these species of birds don’t migrate long distances, they can judge the environment of where they will migrate to from their wintering location.
Obligate migrants arriving in early April have the advantage of being around when their prey is beginning to become more prevalent in their summer habitat and they can set up a territory before they start breeding. However, obligate migrants have the disadvantage of a cold spell they didn’t know about when migrating north that keeps their prey that live closer to Burlington in the winters from migrating, leading to a lack of resources for the obligate migrants. I only saw two migrant species on my birding excursion and they were both facultative migrants so they didn’t travel far but the rough estimate of the miles traveled by both species was 181 miles. This number would have been a lot greater if I had observed some obligate migrants on my birding trip, but unfortunately, I saw none.

Date - 03/21/2021
Start time - 3:10
End time - 4:45
Location - Centennial Woods and UVM campus
Weather - 60℉, 2 mph N wind, Sunny
Habitats - Suburban and in the woods

I didn’t see many birds interacting with each other and most of the birds a saw that were in groups were flying overhead, which makes me think that they were looking for food. However, I did see some Black-capped Chickadees that were hopping on the ground and seemed to be looking for seeds on the ground to eat, but they didn’t seem to really be interacting with each other. I did hear a Blue Jay calling but they stopped pretty quickly, so I think the Blue Jay was letting it’s mate know where it was instead of raising the alarm that there was an intruder in their territory or some other form of threat. There were also some chickadees that were calling and singing, I think the calls were them warning of danger or they found food while the songs were likely the chickadees trying to find a mate or communicating with there mate about something.
The Northern Cardinal and the Black-capped Chickadees I saw looked different from when I saw them a couple of weeks ago. The Northern Cardinal I saw seemed to be slimmer and not as fluffed up as the ones I saw the last time I went on a birding excursion, and the cardinal seemed to be brighter today compared to a couple of weeks ago. However, the bird I saw today may have just been cleaner because I only saw one Northern Cardinal, so I didn’t see whether others were also getting brighter as it gets closer to summer. Similar to the Northern Cardinal, the Black-capped Chickadees weren’t fluffed up and seemed slimmer than the ones I saw a couple of weeks ago. The chickadees weren’t getting brighter like the cardinal may have, but they did seem to have more beige underneath their wings. I think the changing colors between these two species is due to the fact that the summer is coming and the change in plumage seen in the Black-capped Chickadees would allow them to blend in with their surroundings better. The brightening of the cardinal, however, is probably helpful for the opposite reason because the bright male can distract a predator to allow the female time to escape and to keep the predator from finding the nest if it gets too close.
The Pileated Woodpecker I saw was pecking away at a hole it had made in the side of a tree and when I tried spishing near it, the woodpecker flew to another nearby tree before going back to the hole it was pecking. I think it was creating a nest to raise offspring in because it is getting close to the time of year when Pileated Woodpeckers start mating and I don’t think it would have returned to the hole it was making if it wasn’t a nest in the making. I’m pretty sure I didn’t do the spishing right because every time I tried, the birds, except the Pileated Woodpecker, would leave and it wouldn’t draw out any more birds. I think when it’s done right, spishing attracts birds because, to me, the spishing sounds seem similar to calls that a bird would make if it was in danger or found food and the birds will show up to help defend the “bird” making the call or to see if there is food they can eat.

Date - 03/07/21
Start time - 3:00 pm
End time - 4:30 pm
Location - Burlington Country Club/UVM Campus
Weather - 28℉, Sunny, 5 mph S wind
Habitats - Lightly wooded areas, open fields

Most of the birds I saw on my bird walk were flying around, some were quickly hopping to a nearby branch, and others, like the crows and hawks, were flying overhead. The Black-capped Chickadees and American Robins I saw were sitting on branches with their feathers fluffed to help them retain heat. The American Robins were also sitting close together, which I assume is so they can share their body heat with each other to stay warm.
The birds seemed to be only doing tasks necessary to survive and when they weren’t they were resting on branches as much as possible. The crows all seemed to be flocking toward what I assume was a carcass or a large amount of food of some kind, the Red-tailed Hawks were flying high in the sky seemingly hunting for squirrels and other small animals, and the Hairy Woodpecker was hunting for insects in a tree. The diets of these birds are probably restricted in the winter due to less availability of seeds and nuts coming from trees and fewer animals running around for predators to eat.
Various species might overnight in the trees on the quad in front of the Grossman School of Business or in the Redstone Pines. Various species could also overnight in snags that are on the edges of campus, which are important because the smaller species of birds can nest in them for protection against predators and the weather. Snags are probably also good for keeping the birds warm because to an extent it is able to contain the heat that the birds give off.

Date - 02/21/2021
Start time - 3:30 pm
End time - 5:00 pm
Location - UVM/Redstone Campus
Weather - Sunny, 27℉, No wind
Habitats - Suburban, temperate climate

The flight pattern of Common Starlings (also known as European Starlings) is an amazing spectacle to watch given how in sync they are in flight and how fluid they appear in the air when they all make the same long sweeping turns. Flying in groups does help increase the aerodynamics of the group and decrease the amount of effort needed to fly, but I’m not entirely sure why this species flies in such a unique way unless it’s their way of hunting or mating. This species seems to always be quickly flapping their wings except for when they are about to turn or are turning in the air, so the long sweeping turns could be a way of allowing their wings to recover for a bit. This is extremely different from the American Crow because when the crows flew over-head their wing strokes were slower and they didn’t glide except for when they were descending.
The overall shape of a bird’s wings matches its flight pattern because as their wings evolved, the birds that had the best flight pattern for their respective wings were likely the ones that survived and taught their offspring to fly. The species with high aspect ratio wings, like gulls, can glide for extended periods of time but they don’t fly very high. These species live on the coasts and tend to glide over water as they look for fish to eat. The species with elliptical wings are constantly flapping but are very maneuverable which is crucial in their habitat because they tend to live in forests where there are a lot of trees to maneuver between. Species with high-speed wings are good for what the name suggests, going fast and maintaining that speed. These birds live in more open areas than species with elliptical wings like plains and marshes or other places where there aren’t many trees to get in the way as they gain speed. Slotted, high lift wings allow the birds to stay high up in the air for a long and glide so they can conserve energy. These birds typically live in trees but are close to an open area like a plain or meadow where they can watch for prey as they soar high in the sky. Not all flight patterns are the same even if they do have the same wing type, and birds usually have unique flight patterns. Even though the flight patterns are a little different, they help narrow down what species of bird it could be by a large amount. For example, on my excursion, I saw a bird that would flap a few times and then dip down before flapping some more, and from this, I inferred it was some type of sparrow but I couldn’t get a good enough look at it to confirm its species.
On my excursion, I didn’t find many birds but I was able to see a decent amount of European Starlings and American Robins. This was probably because I went towards the end of the day when it was getting close to sunset and birds were likely getting ready to go back to their nests to sleep. The weather was perfect, although a bit cold, for birds to be active with no wind and a bright sun in the sky, but birds are more active in the morning when they are first waking up and looking for food after not eating all night. Normally, a college campus would scare off birds due to the amount of people walking around, but on my excursion the campus was empty so there were more birds around I think I would have better luck if I went earlier in the morning and maybe if I went to a more open area like Centennial Park.