bicke1359's Journal

This excursion happened on Wednesday, February 19th, 2020. The excursion started around 12:30pm, and took place at the Burlington Country Club right behind Redstone Campus. I tried to stay around the different groves of trees between the golf course and Redstone campus, because that’s where I thought I would find the most number of birds. The weather today was sunny/partly cloudy, with a decent amount of wind. I didn’t find too many birds during my excursion, which might be caused by both the cold temperatures and the high winds. In this weather, the remaining birds who stayed during the winter (who didn’t migrate to warmer climates) would mostly want to stay in their warm homes. I’m guessing I will have better luck seeing more birds in a couple months when the weather warms up, because I did see numerous empty nests in the bare trees.

When I first got there, I immediately saw a small flock of European Starlings flying somewhat high above the open area of the golf course. The flock was comprised of about 5-6 individuals, and quickly flew out of view. These individuals were staying in a relatively tight formation and were quickly flapping their wings and were also quickly moving horizontally, which caused me to not be able to snap a picture of them. Also from afar, I believe I saw a Northern Cardinal Flying over the far end of the golf course. I didn’t have a real long or good look at the bird, but it was flying alone, heading south, which was different from the European Starlings I saw who were flying North. The Northern Cardinal was also not flapping its wings as quickly as the European Starlings.

There were 2 species of birds which I had a good look at. These species were Hairy Woodpecker and Black-capped Chickadee. For the Hairy Woodpecker, I found it on the side of a tall dead-looking tree. The woodpecker was not really moving very far or fast -- mostly it appeared to be just sitting there. I identified it as a Hairy Woodpecker because it was not too far off the ground, and I could see both its coloring and the size of the beak pretty well. The coloring showed that it was definitely a woodpecker, and I knew it was a Hairy vs a Downy because I believe the beak was too long to belong to a Downy Woodpecker.
When I saw the Black-capped Chickadee, it was one of a pair of Chickadees. I was walking down a path in a small-ish stand of trees, and the Chickadee was sitting on the side of the tree at eye-level right in front of me. It’s not until it flew to the next tree down on the path when I actually saw it and its partner. I could get a pretty good look at it because it stayed in front of me for a while before the two Chickadees flew to a far-off tree in the stand.