Field Journal #2: 2/12/20

It is 1 o'clock in the afternoon, and the date is February 12th, 2020. My bird walk is being conducted in Centennial Woods. The weather is clear with blue skies, but a chilly 35°F. The habitat has a surprising amount of coverage despite it being the middle of winter in Vermont. There are a lot of pine trees, some maples, and other coniferous trees. Centennial Brook is very close, which means water access for the species in the surrounding area.

I’ve seen a couple American Crows gliding between trees, hovering around a specific area. The crows are not as much flying as they are gliding from tree to tree. The crows are not flapping their wings more than once or twice when they move between the trees. I have also seen some Black-capped Chickadees. The chickadees fly differently than the crows. The chickadees flap their wings more rapidly, and do not glide as much as the crows do. I think this is probably linked the wing and body size of the bird, the crows have bigger wings with more surface area that allow them to glide whereas the chickadees have shorter wings and smaller bodies, so they need to flap their wings more rapidly to fly.

The American Crow has wings where the feathers turn into “fingers” almost in flight, and this type of wing is good for gliding. This is helpful to crows because they are scavengers, so they are often gliding above areas searching for food. The Black-capped Chickadee has a different style of wing. Like most other songbirds, the Black-capped Chickadee’s wings are shorter since songbird bodies tend to be pretty small. This means that the Black-capped Chickadee must flap its wings more rapidly in order to fly. This knowledge is helpful in determining what species a bird is from flight patterns. It is more likely that a bird flapping its wings rapidly is a songbird of some type, whereas a gliding bird high up in the sky is likely some sort of vulture or scavenger bird that has bigger wings meant for gliding.

Overall, I did not find a lot of bird during my bird walk. This is likely due to a couple reasons. The first reason is that it is currently the middle of the winter in Vermont, therefore a lot of birds are not as active in the winter as they are during the warmer months. Also, due to natural occurrences such as migration, the physical number of birds in the state decreases during the winter months. Another reason is probably because it is beginning to get pretty windy and clouds are starting to roll in. This means that some sort of storm is likely, and the birds probably know that. I saw a lot more birds this morning walking around campus probably because there was not an impending storm.

If I wanted to observe more birds, it would be wise to return to Centennial Woods during a day where the forecast does not include light snow and wind, and instead is sunny and clear. Centennial Woods is generally a species rich area in Burlington, so returning on a day with better weather might mean I get to see more species variety. Also, moving even closer to Centennial Brook might mean that I see more birds. Centennial Brook is a major water source for a lot of birds and other species that dwell in Centennial Woods. Being in an area where the brook is visible might increase the amount of birds I see because generally speaking, species richness increases near bodies of water.

Posted on February 18, 2020 10:32 PM by emilyw603