Käyttäjän polimpio päiväkirja

Today, on February 21st, I observed eight species of birds. It was sunny with 0% cloud cover and minimal wind in 21 Fahrenheit. I began observing at 9:07 AM and ended at 10:30 AM. All the observations occurred in residential areas or on UVM campus. There were noticeably more bird individuals and bird species present around houses that had bird feeders; these birds were not seen in flight. Another location that had many individuals present was a fruit tree outside a UVM dorm where American Robins, males and females, were feeding on berries in the tree and on the ground under it.

One of the first birds spotted was a Common Raven perched on top of the Redstone Water tower which was spotted again in flight. Ravens have elliptical wing which becomes apparent as they soar with these all-purpose wings. These wings can be identified on a raven when noticing the broadness and far-spread feather tips. Elliptical wings found on ravens help them maneuver. Herring Gulls, however, have high aspect ratio wings to allow the gulls to glide without exerting much energy which could explain why they were seen over campus as they might have been on their way from a water source back to Lake Champlain. Unlike ravens, gulls do not do much maneuvering. Something that was interesting was seeing a flock of gulls flying around with each other in one area which was most likely a pocket of warm air.

When thinking about flapping pattern, smaller songbirds differ from ravens and gulls. For example, a few Black-capped Chickadees were spotted in trees and in flight. While flying from one tree to another, a watcher can clearly see the fast flapping of the chickadee’s wings. This is somewhat similar to the robins that were seen; when traveling from one fruit tree to another, the robin’s wings were flapping quite a bit when compared to birds like ravens or gulls.

Mini-Activity: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oqpVLkUlpYT3fHL7CGkQtah-N64e4d7WLyFiU06rH9o/edit?usp=sharing