May 2nd Near Cloverfield Farm in Colchester, VT

On a breezy, sunny afternoon at around 3:00 pm, I sat in a field near Cloverfield Farm in Colchester, Vermont, waiting to see what birds I would see buzzing by me. It was about 65 degrees on May 2nd and there were hardly any clouds in the sky. I sat on the edge of a forest near a small swampy wetland where there seemed to be dozens of Red-winged Blackbirds nesting in the reeds and trees surrounding. I was able to hear many more birds than I could see, for many of them were in the dense reeds and understory where the wetland met the forest. The only birds that seemed to come near me were the Common Grackles and American Robins. I heard a Belted Kingfisher calling to another somewhere in the wetland, but did not see it. I assume it was a mating pair, one on a nest somewhere in a little bank near the water and the other scouting out around the edge of the swamp.

I also noticed a couple Blue Jays chasing around European Starlings in some of the trees on the edge of the field, fiercely defending their territory and likely preparing for their offspring. While these blue Jays were defending their territory as if it was a hot location, I'm not sure it was the best place for them to be brooding in comparison to other locations nearby and may have been a poor territory choice. I say this knowing how often I see Red-Tailed Hawks and have heard owls in the area, in addition to simply how busy this area is full of birds. There might be many resources in this location for them, but the competition for those resources is certainly high. These Blue Jays were likely expending a lot of energy and were in great shape regarding their fitness in acquiring resources. Based on how tough these Blue Jays looked while fighting off birds that didn't seem like too much of a threat, I have a feeling they will be mostly ok.

I noticed the Red-winged Blackbirds spending a lot of their time in the reeds and in the marshy vegetation at the edge of the woods. I assume many of them were nesting there, defending and spending time keeping an eye on all the local happenings. They mostly build their nests out of reeds or marsh grasses that die or dry out, which seem to be sturdy and easy to carry.

Before I left this little spot, I drew a "sound map" of myself and the proximity (not to scale) of me to the birds that I heard around me. As you can see, there were birds on all sides of me almost at all times, but the Red-Winged Blackbirds did not move too much from the marshy part. I tried to roughly notate the songs and calls of each bird as they compared to one another with different musical notes corresponding to their rough rhythm. The quality of their sound is vaguely depicted through the illustration.

Julkaistu toukokuu 14, 2021 12:09 AP. käyttäjältä cloverkoval