More Bird Study Activity

I had a flurry of bird study activity recently including an Owl Ecology Program and a Ecology/Winter Bird Count Program at Marlboro Intermediate School and three Christmas Bird Counts.

A group of interested 3rd grade students had the chance to do an Owl Ecology session. There was a group of 24 students. We took apart 24 pellets. In the pellets we found 26 mice, 4 shrews, no moles and 1 bird. Compare these numbers with other owl investigations I have done. Look in the archived blogs for them.

The 5th grade students and I did an ecology walk around the school building. We focused on some of the diverse plants in the schoolyard. Talked about how they grow, especially looking at some of the trees. We looked for terminal leaf scarring on twigs to see how much the twigs grew each year over the last few years. We looked for signs of animal life including a several squirrel nests and a robin’s nest. Each student had a pair of binoculars to use to observe wildlife, particularly birds.

I explained that at this time of year all across the country ornithologists and bird watchers are conducting Christmas Bird Counts (CBC). These counts have been held for more than 100 years. The numbers of birds observed and recorded on these counts are used by scientists to look at trends in bird populations over time. A count is held in a specified area 15 miles in diameter. The count area is divided into sector where teams of observers identify and count as many birds as they can on the count day.

We identified and counted birds as we walked around the schoolyard to give students an idea of how ornithologists would do a bird count. Here are our results.

Count starting time 1:15 PM
Count ending time 2 PM
Clear skies, temperature in the low 40’s, gentle breeze from the west
Birds Observed
Red-tailed Hawk – 1
Ring-billed Gull – 7
Blue Jay – 3
American Crow – 8
Northern Mockingbird – 1
Northern Cardinal – 3

I have done three CBC’s in the past week. The first was the Greene County CBC with Alan Mapes and Kate Storms. We had 46 species including 5 Bald Eagles, several thousand Snow Goose, a really great look at a Barred Owl, one Winter Wren and a couple of Yellow-rumped Warblers. The most unusual find was a Baltimore Oriole. Oriole are neotropical migrants and spend their winter in the rainforests of South America. Unlike the Marlboro students we did not find any Northern Mockingbirds.

The second count I did was the Montezuma CBC. I have participated in this count for the last three years. I was happy to join in the count efforts since back in the late ‘70’s I worked on releasing Bald Eagles at the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge and I enjoy the opportunity to look for birds there again. Link to the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge website below to the right to find out more about this wonderful wild area. I teamed up with Jim Eckler and Dave Robertson and we found 34 species, the coolest (in my opinion) being 8 Trumpeter Swans. We also got 1 Bald Eagle, 2 Sharp-shinned Hawks and a Carolina Wren, the only one seen in the count circle.

The third count was the Albany County Christmas Bird Count which I worked with Alan Mapes and Jocelyn Cole. We found 38 species with the most interesting being 2 Northern Shrikes, an adult and a juvenile. Other interesting species were two Ruffed Grouse (an easily missed species), an Eastern Screech-owl, a Barred Owl, two Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers, and eighteen Common Redpoll. The Screech-owl flew in to my screech-owl whistling. If I hadn’t been looking in the right spot when it flew in we’d most likely have missed it as it had a completely silent flight. We observed it for a few minutes then it flew off without a sound.

For more information on Christmas Bird Counts find the link to the right to visit the National Audubon Christmas Bird Count site.

A bonus of these bird count explorations is the chance to see a wide variety of habitats and the wildlife found there, more than just birds. On all three CBC's we observed River Otter tracks. On the Albany County CBC we actually had the chance to observe an Otter along with eight other mammals, an unidentified shrew species, red squirrel, gray squirrel, cottontail rabbit, meadow vole, an unidentified peromiscus species (deer or white-footed mouse), white-tailed deer and muskrat.