April 12, 2012
Location: Union Bay Natural Area
Coordinates: 47.6564218, -122.2927934
Weather: The day started out with only about 30% cloud cover with a light wind at about 60 degrees Fahrenheit, but large, dark storm clouds gradually covered the sky as the day went on and the sky became completely overcast. The wind picked up around 15:00 and it began to rain lightly as we left the Union Bay Natural Area. During our time exploring, it was about 59 degrees Fahrenheit with small patches of blue sky showing through the otherwise dull gray cloud cover. There were more large, dark gray clouds in the sky at this time as well, but the wind was still mild.
For more information on habitat and vegetation of the area, please see the written journal entry for April 12, 2012.
General Comments: Since I was focusing on my drawings, the only creature I was able to get a clear picture of was the Red-winged Blackbird. The males were hopping around the reeds near one of the large ponds and the females were darting around with them. The males were the only ones with the black coloring and red and yellow spot on their wings. The females were brown with white speckles and were smaller. The males' calls consisted of a few sharp chirps and a long, raucous series of titters and louder chirps. There were at least five males around the pond and two females and the males kept calling back and forth to each other as they flew from among the reeds to the trees and back again. They seemed to prefer the area near the water as I did not see any of these birds anywhere else in the other areas of the park we visited.
I wish I had known about the Union Bay Natural Area before! I definitely plan to go back there in the future to find new things to document. I took a picture of a strange bird clinging to a dead tree that I thought was a woodpecker, but since the picture isn't very clear I can't post it on iNaturalist and I won't be able to identify the bird. I hope that, if I go back, I'll see more like it and I'll be able to get a better idea of what I saw. I want to know how many different species of bird I can spot in the Union Bay Natural Area before the quarter is over. I hope to at least see more than one or two of the 200 different species that live in the area like it did when we visited on Thursday.
Species List:
Red-winged Blackbird (male and female)
Great Blue Heron
Mallards
Cat-tails
Himalayan Blackberry
Unknown brown bird perching on a dead tree (originally thought to be woodpecker)
Observaciones
Fotos / Sonidos
Qué
Tordo Sargento (Agelaius phoeniceus)Autor
tessafDescripción
For more information on the habitat, vegetation, and weather of the Union Bay Natural Area when we visited, please see the journal entry for April 12, 2012 in the written journal and, for more general information, see the journal entry here on iNaturalist for that same date. These red-winged blackbirds were all over the area with the cattails next to the large pond in the Union Bay Natural Area. They were flitting around and letting out first a loud chirp and then a long, raucous series of chirps and titters. The males are black with a large red and yellow spot on each wing and the females, who were also present in the area with the males, are brown with black and white flecks. This specimen I observed spent his time hopping between reeds and the trees. He was about 10 inches long (the females are only about 7 inches) and he had long tail feathers. The barn owls and herons in the area are natural predators of these birds while the blackbirds feed on insects, seeds, frogs, etc. These birds build their nests amid reeds, so that may explain what the male and females were doing at the time I observed them
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