Hello everyone!
The area I have chosen to observe is an urban recreation area surrounding the Stoney Creek YMCA in London Ontario. The coordinates are 43.048535, -81.257139. I visited this area to make my observations on January 7th, 2023 at 10 am. It was a mild winter day, there was light precipitation that day and had rained heavily the previous days. The average temperature that day was 2 degrees Celsius. This area is well-maintained year-round. The property borders a small man-made pond, and a private lot of agricultural land and forest. The YMCA property consists of flat land mostly covered with grass as well as some shrubs and trees all planted in 2010. Since it is winter it is difficult to identify some of the vegetation species. I identified some red osier dogwood Cornus stolonifera and staghorn sumac Rhus typhina near the pond. In the center of the property, there is a large 2-story building and a paved parking lot. Surrounding the building is a variety of shrubs and trees. The trees I recognized were sugar maple, oak trees, coniferous trees and cherry trees. I also spotted several songbirds on the property such as Northern Cardinals, Downy Woodpeckers, Black-capped chickadees and House Sparrows.
I noticed a couple of bird nests in some trees and not in others, which makes me wonder which bird species prefer to nest in which trees. There was also a bird feeder on the property with some variations in seeds. The bigger birds with larger beaks seemed to eat bigger seeds, and the smaller birds picked out smaller ones. Does the size and shape of a bird’s beak influence/control the seeds it selects to eat? Or did the beak shape and size evolve based on the seeds that were available to them? Lastly, I wondered why the same species of tree (the cherry trees) that were clustered together, shared some of the same soil/nutrients and were of the same age varied greatly in height and width. Could it have to do with sun exposure and competition for sunlight, as the ones at the back seem taller?
Attached are some screenshots from my field journal.
Millie
