Field Observation 5

Today at around 2 pm I went with a couple classmates down too the Burlington Country Club to observe birds in the surrounding woody areas. It was cloudy and relatively cold, but the snow had stopped by then. We saw a handful of Common Grackles on our way down, in groups of 3-5, mostly in trees outside houses or by the road. Once at the country club, we explored two sections of woods fragment. The trees here were relatively dense but close to the road. We spotted an American Robin in the grass outside the first fragment. Inside the fragment we found a small clearing, where we spotted a handful of Black-capped Chickadees moving about in the upper parts of the surrounding trees. They were quite talkative. I also spotted a Red-breasted Nuthatch a bit further into the woods, and a Downy Woodpecker circling branches of a tree near the green.
In the second fragment, we found more chickadees. We also heard a bird call that we couldn't identify, it made a sound like a Brown-headed Cowbird immediately followed by part of a chickadee call, it repeated enough times that we didn't think it was coming from two separate birds. We thought it might be some sort of mocking bird, but we were unable to spot it for more than a moment and couldn’t identify it. A bit deeper into the woods, Carly found a large clump of long black feathers. They appeared to be from the tip of an American Crow's wing, though we weren't sure because the feathers weren't pure dark black, they appeared slightly brownish. They were the right size to be American Crow primary feathers. After this I had to leave for a meeting. I saw several more Common Grackles in trees along the sidewalk on my walk back, and saw several instances of pairs of Common Grackles with one pursuing the other.
EDIT: This was written on the 20th of April, but not posted until today, thus "Today" refers to Friday, April 20th.

Posted on April 23, 2018 04:36 PM by rwhennes