gabbydowds dagbok

While on my walk, I heard probably hundreds of songbirds interacting with each other. I think a hawk or other predator must have passed over, because they were all congregating in dense trees and alarm calling as loud as they could. To do this, they generally use harsh, shorth calls that happen in rapid succession to call in other birds to hide. For this, they were trying to say; "Take cover!".
I saw a crow and a woodpecker, which have very different plumages. Crows are black, obviously, with structural iridescence in their feathers. Downy woodpeckers are dappled, with fuzzy feathers near their nose and sometimes a red stripe on the back of their head. I think crows might be black in order to maybe blend into the shade, but also maybe to absorb/retain heat. They can live in a ton of places where the temperature is cold so that might be possible. I'm not sure how much they want or need to blend in because of their intelligence and diet. They fight owls and hawks so they don't really seem like the hiding type. Woodpeckers, on the other hand, probably use their dappling to blend into the light filtering through the leaves in order to hide from predators. They also have down near their nose in order to protect from woodchips getting in there. The red spot seems to just determine the males from the females.
I focused on a chickadee bopping around a tree. I went kind of in the morning, so the bugs were still moving around in the sun. The chickadee seemed to be foraging and peeking around for things to eat. This makes sense because of how often birds have to eat, especially when they're warming up for the day.
I love spishing, and I think it works because it seems to imitate an alarm call, specifically a chickadee in my opinion in our location. Chickadee alarm calls draw birds in to hide with them, sort of like the game "sardines".

3/15/24
Weather: Misting rain, Overcast, No wind
45 Degrees F
Time: 6:15 PM, sun was setting

I observed cardinals and chickadees on my walk. I would guess that they don't migrate because they don't really need to, they have adaptations that allow them to survive the harsh winter. They are mainly seed eaters, so they don't have to worry about the lack of bugs, and are both feeder birds so they have that as an extra help in the recent years at least. I didn't see a robin on this walk, but have seen a ton of them in the past few weeks. Robins migrate a little bit south and will come back up here for the warmer months. They do eat bugs and worms, so the ground has to soften up enough for them to do that in order for them to thrive and breed. I would say an advantage of being early migrants is that they get first pick of everything; the territories, the food, and the nesting sites. But it also comes with the risk of what just happened last week; the massive storm. It buries most of their food sources and freezes insects, making it much harder for them and probably leaving them wishing that they hadn't moved yet.

This evening I decided to drag my family out to try to hear a woodcock. Fun fact that I didn't know before this, woodcocks migrate and pretty far at that! I looked at the map and the closest place to Vermont was probably Dover, New Jersey. That is about 308 miles from Burlington and 154 miles from Delmar, NY, where I heard the woodcock. At the end of the audio clip you do hear me sniffle, and that was a mix of I was mildly crying because I was so excited, and it was not warm out. It was so cool to hear one, I've heard people talk about them for years but never actually saw or heard one myself until now. It was also nice to hear the blackbirds coming back, though I'm sure they're as confused with the weather as we are!