Week Six

Date: Friday May 10th, 2013
Weather: Sunny, a few clouds, somewhat windy
Temperature: 70 degrees F
Time: 2:30 PM to 4:30 PM
Location: Discovery Park

So on this wonderful day, we got to chase birds! Or well, as much as you can chase birds before they just fly away. But before I get to the birds, I'll get all the plant and phenological changes out of the way. As we strolled through the forest, we came across some more plant species I was unfamiliar with. Unfortunately, my poor photography limits my ability to identify them, so I'll just post pretty pictures!

An unknown

Another unknown

We did come across a couple of plant species I was familiar with, but hadn't yet come across yet in Discovery Park!

False Soloman's Seal

Wild Ginger, yummy smelling

Lesser Hop Trefoil

Northern Starwort

Nootka Rose

Red Huckleberry

Red-Osier Dogwood

We also came across a few new phenlogical changes.

Salmonberry is fruiting! We saw an almost ripe drupe on one of the bushes. 

Creeping Buttercup is in flower!

That concludes all the new plants! We had hoped to see a few new arthropods, and we did! Ch-ch-check it out!

Six spotted Lady Beetle

Potential Carpenter Ant?

Some sort of Beetle (Coleoptera)

Now to the real stuff for this week: birdz! Almost immediately after we left the parking lot we saw a couple of small sparrow-like birds fly over us in an undulating manner at a height of about 13 feet, moving from a tree on one end of a clearing to a large shrub on the other end. But we were unfamiliar with their tweets and didn't get a good look at them, so identification was not a real possibility. 

Moving on, we found a Black-capped Chickadee that we decided to stalk. Initially, it flew back and forth in a Salmonberry bush, but we couldn't really see what it was up to. Finally it flew up into the bottom portion of a large Bigleaf Maple, and started curiously flitting back and forth along a branch. Under careful observation, it appeared that it was feeding on insects! Mostly small caterpillar like things that were feeding on the tree. It continued this for quite a while, without making a sound or interacting with any other birds. It just flew around the bottom portion of the tree, probably around 10 feet from the ground, eating bugs. I heard another Black-capped chickadee quite a ways away, but it didn't respond. I imagine this is probably because that while it is feeding, it would be disadvantageous to respond, lest it gives away its position to a potential predator. 

Since it seemed like this chickadee was content to continue eating for quite a while, we continued our search for birds. We came across an American Robin, perched at the very top of a Douglas-Fir in the middle of a clearing. It sang its interrupted, cheerful song quite readily for all to hear. We decided to watch what it would do. However, it just kept singing. Every now and then, it would take a break for maybe 20-30 seconds to groom itself and fluff its feathers, probably to look good for a potential mate, but then it would resume its unwavering song. Since both this bird, and the chickadee didn't seem to be doing much, we decided to delve deeper into the forest. 

But before we managed to do that, an American Crow cackled at us. Rather aggressively as well. I have a tiny fear of crows, because I've been attacked by them before. I remember the event quite clearly; it was a Sunday on a warm spring day around 7:00PM. I was walking from my house in Maple Leaf to a bus stop two blocks away. Almost right away, as I left my house, a crow cawed at me. Of course, I thought nothing of it because this has happened a million times. However, the crow began to follow me. After a block, it began to caw again, and another crow came. Together, the two of them began to follow me and caw at me. It was quite unnerving, but I though once I got far away enough they'd leave me alone. How wrong I was. Soon I got to the bus stop, and another two crows showed up to join the chorus of cawing. At this point, two of them flew into a tree above the bus stop and started ripping leaves from the tree and throwing it at me. I was hoping the bus would come soon so I didn't have to deal with this, but they escalated the situation by starting to dive bomb me. At this point, I called it quits and decided I had had enough, and ran for it. This might have encouraged them though, because as I ran across the street, one of them swooped lower than usual, and hit my lower back with its beak, leaving a small welt. Fortunately, I ran the two blocks home and they didn't follow me. I decided to stay home that night. 

I'm watching you...

There were quite a few times we heard an Anna's Hummingbird, but only managed to glimpse it once as it fed from some Himalayan Blackberry bushes. I tried to pull out my camera to capture a snapshot of it, but I was too slow to the draw, and it quickly flitted away. 

After a little bit of trekking, we came across an overlook into a very wooded area with a lot of canopy cover. We decided to sit down and see if any birds would come our way. It took quite a while, but after a while we spotted a Spotted Towhee rummaging through the leaf litter collected under a thicket of blackberry bushes. At this point we decided to see if we could lure it in with some playback calls. At first, we started with some songs, and got no response. But then we used calls, and started getting some responses. It was funny how much of a game of marco polo it seemed like. Eventually, the same towhee came back through the blackberry bushes on the other side of us, and looked at us inquisitively. We wanted to get a picture, so we kept repeating the call. Apparently, that towhee wasn't the only one that heard us though; soon enough we were surrounded by four towhees, one to the right on the ground in blackberry bushes, one to the left in the top of a large shrub, and two behind us (one on the ground, another in a bigleaf maple). At this point we managed to get a snapshot!

One in the tree!

One on the ground! Surrounded!

We decided to stop calling the towhees, because we were afraid that we might end up stressing them out. We tried other calls like hummingbirds, Goldfinches, and Northern Flickers, but without any results. After a while, we tried a Chestnut-backed Chickadee call, and that seemed to attract one of them! It came over quite inquisitively, and ended up observing us from a branch almost right above us as we called to it and it responded. 

Checking out the neighbors

It didn't seem aggressive all though, more curious. It just watched us and groomed itself. In fact, it stayed put long after we stopped calling to it, and didn't leave until we did. After a bit more walking we found ourselves closer to the shoreline, but not actually at it despite our best efforts. From the distance we managed to spot a Western Gull shrieking in the air, but eventually we lost sight of it. Due to time restrictions, we had to turn back, even though we meant to see all the shorebirds and waterfowl that might be on the shoreline.  

Trying to find a meal. 

As we worked our way through the forest again, we looked up to see a Great Blue Heron! What a majestic bird! The UW campus has a rookery that I like to visit every now and then to see what they're up to. 

Despite being a wetland bird, they nest in terrestrial trees!

The last bird we saw were a couple of small nondescript sparrow shaped but robin sized birds that flew through a clearing and right past us into low shrubbery. They were mostly grey, with a black streak over the eye. There were about three initially, but another joined them as they hopped along the ground in the understory. They made a fairly taunting cackling sound that almost sounded like an evil laugh. I was hoping to see them again, but the brush was too thick to see through. Maybe I will come across them again the future?