Weston, MA; 6 April 2020

This excursion took place on Monday, 6 April, 2020, and began at approximately 7:30am. It occured in a town conservation land near my home in Weston, MA. The weather during the excursion was quite nice -- sunny (barely any, if any clouds in the sky), very little to no wind, and the temperature was in the low-mid 40’s Fahrenheit. In the conservation land, I was walking on the trails, which went through a mix of heavily forested areas to wide open spaces, so I could try to see different kinds of birds. I saw only one other person while I was there, so other people were no distraction.
After some research on the Cornell lab of Ornithology website, I learned that all the birds I encountered on my excursion (American Crow, Black-capped Chickadee, American Goldfinch, American Robin) live in Massachusetts year round, as well as a lot of the rest of the United States as well. So, I didn’t find any migratory birds today. Some of these birds I saw and heard today may have migrated from somewhere else in the US, but they may have also been here all winter. These birds are probably scavengers and habitat generalists -- they can probably live in almost every habitat and also eat a variety of things (like insects, fruit, nuts, small mammals, etc.). They probably don’t migrate somewhere else for the winter (or at least very far) because it would be too energetically expensive for them, and they won’t have the resources to migrate.
According to the maps on Cornell’s All About Birds, American Robins could winter in Florida, and then migrate at least 1000 miles from there to as far north as Alaska. From the southern tip of Florida to Boston, MA is just about 1280 miles, according to Google Maps. American Goldfinches can also migrate long distances as well. Although they also stay in the majority of the US year round, they can migrate from Florida, Alabama, Mexico, etc. in the winter up to southern Canada in the summer. From their most southern range in Mexico to Boston, the American Goldfinch can migrate up to 2,080 miles. These are just maximum migratory distances, given that these birds also just stay in the northeast region of the US all year round.

Posted on April 8, 2020 04:29 PM by bicke1359