rita

I really enjoyed this course. I think that I will look for bird friendly coffee, and put some kind of window safety decoration up. I recently started citizen science and I truly enjoy it. I like going out on walks and trying to be extremely quiet and still so as not to disturb the birds, and listening for the bird songs and trying to identify them. I think that over my lifetime the bird population has decreased, but here in Washtenaw County we have done so much to provide habitat for birds that I am sure there are more birds here and more varieties of birds than when I was young. We have tons of designated nature areas. I would like to continue ebirding, but first I am going to sign up for another class!

  Activity #2 Roger Road has to be a very diverse ecosystem- It has to have trees for the woodpeckers, probably buildings or bridges for the swallows, pigeons, although they could live near open water, open water for the herons and Ibis, ducks, and other water and shore birds, and a certain amount of open sky for all the hawks and birds of the open  sky. Mt Lemmon, on the other hand, while a diverse ecosystem, is mainly woods for all of the thrushes, warbles, and flycatchers, and shrub scrub and breaks in the woods for the hawks and hunting birds of the sky-there is a mountain chickadee and a Canyon wren, so maybe there are mountains- a pine siskin, so maybe there are pines- an acorn woodpecker, so maybe there are oaks.

Activity#1 I watched a pair of Flickers for about a half hour one evening- the were foraging on the ground  for food at first, and one was feeding the other. Then later I saw them again foraging on the ground for food, but near what looked like an old tree stump, an still one was feeding the other. I didn't know that Flickers were ground birds, really, and although of course they feed their young, these two both had adult plumage and markings, even though one was slightly smaller than the other. So I thought that it was an adult feeding a juvenile, and maybe teaching it how to find food. Activity #2 This is a very good activity for me at present. I have just put up bird feeders around the yard, including a finch feeder and a stocking full of thistle seed. I also put some suet in a suet cage and some peppery bird seed in a bird feeder. One of my neighbor's cats likes to come by and the birds are especially cautious if they see it, so I am trying to position the feeders away from any larger plants. The goldfinches just take a seed at a time, and stay a short while, as do the house sparrows- but that may be because of the cat- while the larger birds, such as the jays and crows, with eat quite a lot of bird seed. I had a juvenile red winged blackbird that wound itself around d the suet cage and ate quite a bit- whereas the downy woodpecker that comes only spends a short time at the feeder. The goldfinches haven't bothered with the thistle seed- they seem to prefer the peppery mix. And some birds will eat on the ground, such as robins and crows, and jays. Activity #3 I generally hear a lot more species of birds than I see, and I only know a few of the bird songs. But I have been able to find birds after having heard them sing. And I now know the robin's alarm call that it makes as I am walking near its nest or on a path that runs by its nest.

Exercise #3 The American Gold Finch is a bright, bright yellow with black wings, a white rump, and white wing bars. It has a black cap in summer and a pale orange beak. In winter its plumage has much less yellow, although the face is still quite yellow, and in winter it no longer has a black cap. Instead it has much more white and tan colors, although it still has its black wings. The Common Loon is extremely striking, with a black head and black beak and red eye, and a black and white neck band and green neck band, and a black and white body and black and white stripes on its chest. It is also much more drab in winter. Its beak changes to a lighter color! It becomes a two-toned beak. And it loses its neck bands. Overall it becomes a two toned duck, with white on the underside and front of neck and face, and a light brown on its back and top of head and back of neck. Its eye is still the same red.

I really enjoyed this exercise, although I ended up with quite a lot of notes, and I still don't think that I understand the maps, For instance, for both the rufous hummingbird and the western tanager- according to the range maps both birds are found coast to coast, but according to the migration animation maps, they never are seen in Michigan, which is where I live. I realize the animation map shows the highest concentrations of them and not the total population. The Northern Cardinal doesn't migrate much at all, and can be found year round in Michigan and throughout its range, which covers most of the United States, the lower half of Canada, and Central America. The Blackburnian Warbler, by contrast, travels from Mexico to the bottom half of Canada in migration, spending the winters in the warmer climate of Central America and the summers up north. The Scarlet Tanager and the Western Tanager are both migrating birds, but the Scarlet Tanager migrates from the upper coast of South America and the Western Tanager from Central America. There is a bigger concentration of Scarlet Tangier's in the southern U'S during breeding season- the Western Tanger flies all the way up to Canada. Both the Rufous Hummingbird and the Ruby -throated hummingbird fly north from Central America- the range and concentration map shows that most of the rufous hummingbirds fly along the west coast into Canada, while the ruby-throated hummingbird migrates into the United States and Canada for the breeding season and back down to Central America for the winter. Sandhull crane vs. yellow-bellied flycatcher The Sandhill Crane is the most interesting so far- It is spread all over, and its migration is incomplete, in that some Sandhill Cranes stay down in Florida while most fly north as far north as the arctic and Alaska. But climate can’t be the driving factor in their migration if some of them stay in Florida for the summer. The Yellow-bellied flycatcher flies from Central American to Canada and back down again. Overall it has a very wide range as well, although not as wide a range as the Sandhill Crane.

Activity #1, part 1 Today I heard many birds but didn't get to see very many. I have a new pair of binoculars, and the first bird that I was able to see through them was a hummingbird. Hummingbirds spend a lot of time at the monarda in the garden, but also travel from plant to plant. My favorite way to feed the birds has been to have plants that they like, but today I put out bird feeders with seed and suet and suet cakes around the garden. I heard a cardinal, a woodpecker, a jay, m goldfinches, chickadees, and a few others. I plan on watching BirdCam ad trying to identify more birds. I have been listening to a video of birds and their bird songs from my region. I find that I am not as up on my birdsongs as I thought. Even though I was up quite earl this mornings I was unable to identify very many birds by their songs. There was definitely a cardinal this morning singing quite boldly, but I could not find it to view it or take a photo. So I am creating a bird watching area out of my own yard, using my house as a sort of blind. I can go from room to room and see areas of the garden out different windows. Then there is a park next to the house and there should be more birding opportunities there. But using ebird I have also discovered that there are several hotspots in and around Ann Arbor, and a large variety of birds to be seen, if I just get out and about in the parks and nature areas.

Activity #2- red-winged blackbird, robin, downy woodpecker, all have red markings on different parts of their body. The red-winged blackbird has a red band on its wing, the robin a red chest, and the downy woodpecker has a red cap. Activity #3- birds looking for food. Not all of these were today. In the spring after the wrens hatch there is always a time when I am keeping an eye out for crows, as they steal and eat the young. This year, a pair of robins nested in the euonymous along my back fence, and the male was continually chasing out predators, and I am afraid the crows may have gotten their first clutch at least. I never saw any fledglings. And one crow captured a baby rabbit and flew away with it. The crows are very devious, and once they know where a nest is, or for that matter a group of baby rabbits, they will be back for another meal. Last fall there were various kinds of woodpeckers all over the yard looking for insects. They even tried to get insects out of old garden stakes that were still up.  Lately there have been many goldfinches lighting on the Black-eyed Susans in my rain garden looking for seeds, and an unknown brown bird has been foraging for insects or seeds in the ground. I thought that I saw one of them fly away with a big worm in its mouth this morning, but was not sure. Previously I had thought that they were seed gatherers. I haven't been able to I.D. this bird. It is not new to the area- I have had them follow me around as I weed in the garden or even follow me around as I use the trimmer to trim the weeds. I think that they may be  juveniles, as they are very drab in their coloring, and I cannot find them in any book. I have a Rufus hummingbird that I see almost daily feeding on various flowers around the garden- Another yearly occurrence is something I refer to as a sort of sparrow party. When the seeds from the goatsbeard are ripe, the sparrows form a group around the plants and hop upwards to grab at the seedheads. They also will do this with millet. It is quite a lovely sight to see-  And of course, after I water the vegetables in the morning, the robins come out to look for worms. I may take a hike and redo this activity in an outdoor space less familiar to me. I will likely have a very different set of birds.

I loved looking at the wall of birds! It is beautifully painted and extremely informative. I especially like the pencil drawings of the extinct species. I have chosen Cedar Waxing, Goldfinch, and Red bellied woodpecker as my three birds. I espied a pair of Cedar Waxwings while out on a walk earlier this spring, I have many goldfinches in my neighborhood and especially my yard as I have lots of black eyed Susans and echinacea, and they like the seeds from these flowers. And there are Red bellied woodpeckers living in the neighborhood, and they have visited my trees looking for food. Cedar Waxwings belong to the waxwing group, Goldfinches to the finch family, and Fred bellied woodpeckers are a large woodpecker. The Red bellied woodpecker was perhaps my favorite to see- they are large with rather long, pointed bills that they use to get insects from dead or infested trees. The waxwings were sort of a nice surprise- they were in a dead tree overlooking the Huron River. And the goldfinches are here every year due to the fact that I make sure to plant things with seeds that they like. I will have to take photos to upload at another time.