Ornithology Field Journal Entry 1

Date: February 8th, 2024
Start Time: 4:10 pm
End Time: 5:30 pm
Location: Centennial Woods
Weather: day high of 44, low of 26, currently 42, wind 4 mph blowing SSE, very sunny
Habitat: Northern Hardwood Forest transitioning to Pine forest, marshy clearing with a stream surrounded by pine

It’s been sunny and warm these past few days. Punxsutawney Phil declared a short winter and the skies parted. Today seemed like the perfect day to go out birding. Classes and work kept me inside until 3:30, but I finally set off to Centennial Woods at around 4, ready to see what the sunset would bring. The paths were slippery and the woods were beautiful. I heard chickadees, titmice, and nuthatches calling, and woodpeckers the loudest and most active of all. I came to a stop by a marshy clearing, setting up my hammock between two trees, dangling over a half frozen creek. Immediately, I heard a woodpecker drum on a nearby snag, reverberating loudly throughout the area. It’s their breeding season currently so they’ll be drumming and calling out a lot this time of year. There were two birds calling to each other from across the clearing, one short trilling tweet, responding to another short trilling tweet. I wonder if they were woodpeckers. Unfortunately I didn’t see any woodpeckers, but I definitely knew they were there and saw their mark upon the snags.
Although the forest was very much alive and loud, I only actually saw one bird. It was a White-breasted Nuthatch, and I saw it only briefly. A little ways into the clearing there’s a tall, thin tree standing almost alone. About fifteen minutes into my time at the clearing, a nuthatch flew from the forest across the clearing, to the lone tree. Its flight was quick, and undulating. I scanned the trunk through my binoculars, near the top of the tree I spotted the nuthatch, climbing down and around the trunk and identified a white stomach. Quickly after I spotted it, the little bird flew back to the forest where it came from, dipping up and down. The flight pattern isn’t uncommon for small birds, but along with the habitat, trunk climbing, silhouette, and of course by seeing it through the binoculars, I could positively ID the bird as a White-breasted Nuthatch. Flight pattern can be very useful is bird ID, helping to differentiate groups of birds, and similarly sized/shaped birds such as the American Crow and Pileated Woodpecker. However, more information is usually necessary to fully ID the bird.
I was surprised to only have seen one bird; today was warm and sunny in a sea of cold and gray weather, and I could hear birds everywhere. Perhaps it was the time of day. I went later than I intended due to work, but there was still light and warmth when I was out, and birds are often active at sunset. When wondering why I didn’t see more birds, I thought that late on winter days, going into the night, bigger, more predatory birds may take to the skies, and perhaps the many songbirds I was hearing were laying low, not flying into open air through the clearing. Perhaps the birds were curled up for the winter night, and they were just sharing their last words before bed.
An animal I definitely saw a lot of was the squirrel. Many of them were scampering across the melting snow and playing in the trees. As I was informed in class, squirrels talk a lot during the winter, and birders must take note of this. Their noises can vary and the pitches may confuse people into believing they’re hearing a bird, when really it's a squirrel. This happened to me when I was hearing a sharp call repeatedly pierce the air, a short ‘che’ followed by a high “ee” sound, almost meow-ish. I thought I was hearing a mystery bird, but in class when I brought you the sound clip I was informed that it was, in fact, a squirrel. I’ll remember to pay attention to all the different species around me, and how they all differ and mix in the wild air.
And of course, I lied, I saw more than one bird. On my way home I saw hundreds, honestly I wouldn’t be surprised if thousands of American Crows were flying to roost for the night. One of my absolute favorite things is watching the crows each night. They’ve been frequently roosting right outside my window in Jeanne Mance. Almost every night I watch the skies turn mad with crows, flying every way, circling around the trees right outside my dorm. They loudly converse, often waking me up throughout the night, but I don’t mind. They’re settling in towering, old oak trees, and are often perfectly silhouetted against the bare branches and dark sky. And each morning, they take flight again as the sun rises, and I’m almost always woken up by their caws to see a beautiful sunrise that I’d otherwise miss. I love passing smaller roosts around campus on my walks home, and seeing them fly across the sky in numbers I can’t even believe, and of course having them right by my window. Perhaps I’ll leave them some peanuts, and they’ll remember my face the way they so incredibly can, and they’ll bring my shiny things. That's a friendship I would love to have.

Posted on February 9, 2024 09:11 PM by allieableman