sdecrescinaturalist's Journal

Date: 11/21/21
Start time: 4:00 pm
End time: 5:30 pm
Location: My backyard which is next to 100 acres of woods, in High Ridge Circle, Franklin Massachusetts
Weather: 32 degrees Fahrenheit, sunny, 7mph wind speed, Southwest direction, 1% precipitation, little to no clouds in the sky.
Habitat(s): Suburban community however the backyard borders a woodland forest with numerous tall trees with the foliage fallen off and massive pine trees. The two Black-Capped Chickadees were spotted on a low tree in my backyard then they flew into the tree line. The Northern Cardinal was spotted in a tall birch tree right next to my house, where the woods meet. I saw the two House Finches in the front of my house in a smaller tree.

On my excursion I started out by walking along the path through the woods in the back of my house, but the more I did I realized that that the crunching if the snow as I was walking through the woods was making it hard to hear for any bird calls and also it probably was scaring the birds away. I decided to walk back to my house and as I did, I saw two birds fly from a lower hanging branch on a tall tree in the tree line and descended somewhere in the front of my house. I walk towards the front of my houses and look at all of the trees until I find two House Finches at the top of a small tree in front of my house. Because it was sunny it was easier to see their red faces and red chest in comparison to their gray body, though it could only really be seen at certain angles. After watching the birds for about 5-10 minutes, just sitting there on the top branch, they both flew away at the same time into the larger trees across the way. The flight they took showed sharp turns that allowed them to bank around my house quickly, but it also incorporated a lot of flapping, it was from this I saw the birds had elliptical shaped wings that made it easy for them to move both fast and through dense and crowded areas like the woods. As soon as the House Finches flew off, it was still sunny out and I was looking up across the tree line where I saw a very bright spot of red jumping from branch to branch. It was a Northern Cardinal, it was hard to miss, but when I focused closely I could positively see it was a Male Northern Cardinal due to the large black spot on its face against the bright colors of its beak and foliage. Sadly, it was jumping so fast I could not get a picture as it was jumping behind and in front of certain brightly colored leaves that was making it hard to focus in on the bird. However, when it flew away, I was able to clearly see the wings and the way it flew. It dive-bombed in a sense, from the low branch on a very tall tree, and quickly banked around the house very into the line of trees on the other side, similarly to the House Finch. This also helped me notice Northern Cardinals also had elliptical wings that made it easier to maneuver around tight spaces, which also explains why he was perched at a lower branch on a very large tree like the two finches.

Sadly, the Northern Cardinal was only in my sight for about 1 minute, in which after I went around to the back of my house and sat on the porch to sit and wait before until I saw a bird. It was very quiet after that; I could only hear the wind whistling and tree leaves brushing together. I hypothesize the reason there was barely any birds out is due to the time I went out; at 4:00 pm and sunset was at around 5:25 pm which I was coming up on. After sitting on my porch for over 40 minutes just trying to listen to the wildlife, nothing was turning up, just possible chirps I thought I heard but was not distinct to verify. However, after a while I saw that two Black-Capped Chickadees landed on a tree near me, not a large tree. For the sketch mini-activity I sketched a Chickadee so I knew what it was when I saw it, a small bird with black and white striped wings, tan body, signature black cap and a black under its beak that looks somewhat like a beard and a small tuft of white on its chest. I was only able to see it for about 20 seconds before they both flew away directly into the tree line across the backyard. While I was not able to see their flight pattern against a curve, I saw their wings which were elliptical shaped wings, which helped the two birds move fast and somewhat choppy. These characteristics again looked very similar to the House Finches and the Northern Cardinal. Finally, after I tried and failed to capture a picture of the two Chickadees, I was able to hear them calling each other in the woods, which I luckily was able to record. For the rest of the time I sat and waited until the sun was starting to go down and I realized my 90-minute excursion was over.

Comparing the three bird species I saw House Finch, Northern Cardinal and Black-Capped Chickadee, they were very similar to one another. Their wings were all elliptical, which enables a bird to be fast taking off and maneuvering through dense areas. That fact tracks with what I observed in both the Finches and the Cardinal where they quickly took off and banked around the side of my house into the woods. This is probably due to their small size, albeit they are not all the same size, it would be easy for predators on the ground or in the sky, such as hawks, to snatch them up as prey but their wings allow them to take off and allow them to navigate through narrow tight spaces which is why I observed them in the heavily wooded areas or on its outskirts. The wings also explain why the birds were not on the top of the trees; at most they were on a branch that was half distance from the top, which they were located due to the fact that if they needed to flee then they could quickly maneuver through the dense brush and lose any predators they come across whether on the ground or in the sky. The style of flying, very quick, and choppy, will also help me distinguish in the future what type of birds I am seeing as these birds seem to be very fast and durable and more likely will reside to more densely wooded areas at relatively lower height instead of flying above the tree-line. I believe that if I merely stay near my house I will find a lot of birds such as this, like elliptical wings, hence I am going to try in the following weeks venture out more to my local parks and see if I can spot different types of birds with different wing shapes and physiology.