Field Journal 3

Date - 03/07/21
Start time - 4:00pm
End time - 5:30 pm
Location - Red Rocks Park, South Burlington, VT
Weather (temperature, wind speed/direction, precipitation) - 25 degrees, no wind, clear skies
Habitat(s) -Eastern white pine forests with deep shade, sparse underbrush; young ironwood and musclewood groves with plenty of sun on rocky outcrops

I had surprisingly bad luck finding birds this time around. Over ninety minutes, I identified one Hairy Woodpecker, saw one hawk fly overhead too fast to photograph, and heard a few scattered chirps. I may have had more luck near the edges of the forest, because a lot of the habitat had thick evergreen cover without much underbrush for shelter or food.
The Hairy Woodpecker foraged the entire time I could observe it. It was up high on a dead deciduous tree pecking holes into the branches. Since food is less plentiful in winter, it makes sense that birds would be spending more of their time looking for it. Hairy woodpeckers primarily eat larvae in wood, but they feed on seeds and berries occasionally. Minus the berries, this one's winter diet is probably pretty similar to its summer diet.
I'm not sure what the woodpecker was doing to stay warm, other than producing heat through activity. Its feathers didn't look fluffed up from far away; the wind was calm and it was already active, so it might not have needed the extra insulation. I poked around a bunch of dead trees, and the forest at Red Rocks had plenty of cavities it could have spent the night in.
Even though I didn't find any birds through it, I had a lot of fun with this week's mini activity. The friends I brought laughed at me for hitting dead trees with sticks, and unfortunately I did not give them a reason to stop by actually finding birds. Most of the cavities I found seemed to be excavated by woodpeckers for food, as they weren't deep enough for nesting or shelter. A few trees had promising cavities, but despite my very polite knocking, no one came out to say hello. Snags are an important source of shelter for birds in winter. Cavities in snags provide respite from wind and snow. Woodpeckers like the one I saw use cavities, as well as other common cavity nesters like chickadees and nuthatches, plus some smaller owls and raptors.

Posted on March 8, 2021 09:38 PM by