Bird Walk #6

I went birding on April 20th, 2020 from 2 pm to 4 pm. As I am still in quarantine (as most of us are), I stuck to walking around my suburban neighborhood for those two hours. It is a typical suburban area with lots of open yards, some short dense shrubs, along with some older trees. It was quite warm at the beginning of my walk but got a little bit colder and windier as time went on. The skies were relatively clear and the temperature was mild.

In terms of behaviors related to mate selection, nest selection, and territory selection, there was certainly a lot going on! The first, most aggressive interaction I noticed was amongst a group of 3 American Crows. They were flying relatively high, and appeared to be all fighting over a prime tree/tree area. There was agnostic behavior in their calls, which were loud and grating, as well as physical dominance by diving on each other. The male that was being attacked appeared to be submissive, as it eventually decided to leave the tree it was defending for another dominant male that was being quite persistent. It was clear that this tree was a prime location for either a nest or finding a mate because many crows were checking it out and challenging actively defending members.

Another apparent behavior in terms of nesting and mates; I observed that most of my observations of House Sparrows included either building nests, gathering nesting materials, fighting with other males for territory, or copulation. There are many House Sparrows in my yard so there was a lot going on! I noticed a House Sparrow collecting twigs in my neighbor's yard, and flying over to their nest to add on. I also noticed an already-built House Sparrow nest, as it was occupied by a House Sparrow, filled with what appeared to be paper strings that are used to fill Easter baskets. It is possible this bird could have found them in the trash, or littered around the neighborhood. It appeared they had taken quite a liking to this material! Upon me getting closer to the nest, the House Sparrow stood its ground and didn't fly away quite so quickly as others do. Perhaps this is because it wanted to ensure the success of its nest and new it was in a prime location.

I have included the picture of the sound map (mini activity) I made in the observation for the American Crow.

Posted on April 21, 2020 04:54 PM by