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6 September 2010
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Rockport, Maine, USA
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Archive for the ‘Lists’ Category
Sunday, September 5th, 2010
 Yellow-rumped warbler.  Common yellowthroat. I heard the quay! of a red-eyed vireo when Jack and I stepped out of the pickup in the Rockville Street parking lot. The wooded Beech Hill slope moved and whispered before us as a brisk, cool breeze stirred the clean, dry air. We began to walk and soon heard the cheeps and burbles of a small band of black-capped chickadees.
At this time of year, few birds are very vocal. The rare spring song will emerge as by accident, like a hiccup, but most nesting species are secretive and silent, rarely offering up more than a subtle incognito chip note. Chickadees, though, always hang out in little groups, and they seem ceaseless in their communication: I’m over here. What’ve you got there. I heard something down below. Here’s some grubs and berries. You kids don’t stray too far.
 Yellow-rumped warbler. And however it ends up happening, at this time of year, the chickadees are rarely alone. I’ll hear them up ahead along the trail and slow my pace. Once within view, I’ll begin to scan the trees for small swift movements. Sometimes these will be white-cheeked birds with black caps, but just as often they’ll be wood warblers or thrushes or other miniature passerines. It feels like a magic trick, in fact. At a season when it’s hard to list many birds because of their shyness, all you have to do is listen for chickadees.
Today was no exception. The first black-caps I heard were accompanied by a good-sized group of yellow-rumped warblers that zipped and flew quickly through the undergrowth, chasing each other and pecking at twigs and finding morsels there. I stood for about five minutes or so watching them—must’ve been at least a half dozen of ‘em. And a couple white-throated sparrows popped up into view, as well. And a solitary veery was a surprise. In the distance I heard the call of a raven.
 Turkey vulture. I didn’t hear the second gang of chickadees until we’d returned over the summit and begun our descent into the lower wooded trail. More white-throats accompanied this group, too, as did a solitary black-throated green warbler, hopping and flitting silently amid the greenery, not uttering so much as a tiny chip.
At this point, I found myself in The Zone, living in the moment, tiptoeing down the trail. As the voices of the second group of chickadees receded behind us, I already heard the sounds of the third group up ahead. These birds moved with brown creepers, wood-pewees, titmice, and a black-throated green warbler. The titmice were rather vocal, but the brown creepers emitted only their sibilant chip note. The pewees were utterly silent.
Since I was about nine or ten years old, among my favorite things to do in life has been to lose myself in the magic of a wood. I can’t remember the last time I had so much fun.
 Black-capped chickadee. Beech Hill List
Beginning at 8:15 a.m., I hiked all trails.
1. Red-eyed vireo
2. Black-capped chickadee
3. Common yellowthroat
4. Gray catbird
5. Mourning dove
6. Yellow-rumped warbler
7. White-throated sparrow
8. Veery
9. Common raven
10. Eastern towhee
11. Cedar waxwing (voice)
12. Savannah sparrow
13. Herring gull
14. Turkey vulture
15. Blue jay (voice)
16. American goldfinch (voice)
17. Black-throated blue warbler
18. Eastern wood-pewee
19. Brown creeper (voice)
20. Tufted titmouse
21. Black-throated green warbler
Elsewhere
22. American crow
 Black-throated blue warbler.
Tags: American goldfinch, black-capped chickadee, black-throated blue warbler, black-throated green warbler, blue jay, brown creeper, Cedar waxwing, common raven, common yellowthroat, eastern towhee, eastern wood-pewee, gray catbird, herring gull, mourning dove, red-eyed vireo, savannah sparrow, turkey vulture, veery, white-throated sparrow, yellow-rumped warbler
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Saturday, September 4th, 2010
 Osprey. I awoke last night to the sound of a gentle rain. And maybe a bit of breeze. The rain was pattering on the roof beyond my bedroom window. Knowing it was raining, and that the rain represented the fringeds of Hurricane Earl, I let myself sleep in some, and when I finally rose, there was still a bit of drizzle falling. Got dressed, made breakfast. Then the rain ended, and the sky began to clear. So despite it being a college football day, Jack and I headed for Beech Hill.
 Gray catbird. Whereas the overcast persisted for about five or ten minutes, it lifted quickly and I looked up to see a clear division in the sky: blue sky to the southeast, clouds to the northwest. Very cut-and-dried. For such a big, well-delineated storm, Earl turned out to be kind of a dud.
But when the sun came out, it got humid right away. Not overly much rain fell, but enough to evaporate in the sun’s brilliance. Not many birds calling, though I did catch sight of small silent songbirds by using the chickadee trick.
Speaking of the chickadee trick—I don’t know if it’s the chickadees that are luring the other songbirds along with them, perhaps because of their love of vocalization, or if perhaps all the little passerines are hanging out together anyway, and it’s just the chickadees that are so vocal. Whatever the case, the first little gang of black-caps came with about a half-dozen silent red-eyed vireos. (For the record, I heard no vireos call this morning.)
 Common yellowthroat. Coming up the last rise, Jack and I heard human voices at the summit. Sure enough, a grandmother and her two grandsons were there already—so soon after a hurricane—and the older grandson was flying a kite in the stout westerly post-hurricane breeze. This sort of put a damper on any bird sightings at the summit, but we headed over and heard blue jays and a goldfinch and saw an osprey. Coming up the trail was a young couple with two little boys. And a half dozen young adults had just arrived at the Beech Hill Road side.
By then I’d counted only twelve bird species, whereas it occurred to me that I’d met up with thirteen individual humans.
No more additional until we headed down again into lower wooded trail, when I heard more chickadees—and again saw other birds flitting up there in the canopy along with them. And I heard the unmistakable musical call of a brown creeper (though I never saw the bird) and I spotted a couple of young chestnut-sided warbler.
That was about it. Nice to hear brown creepers, though—they’ve got a unique song.
 Split sky. Beech Hill List
Beginning at 10:15 a.m., I hiked all trails.
1. American crow (voice)
2. Black-capped chickadee
3. Common yellowthroat
4. Gray catbird
5. Red-eyed vireo
6. White-throated sparrow
7. Cedar waxwing
8. Song sparrow (voice)
9. Osprey
10. Eastern towhee (voice)
11. Blue jay (voice)
12. American goldfinch (voice)
13. Brown creeper (voice)
14. Chestnut-sided warbler
Elsewhere
15. Herring gull
16. Northern cardinal
 Waxwing moon.
Tags: American crow, American goldfinch, black-capped chickadee, blue jay, brown creeper, Cedar waxwing, chestnut-sided warbler, common yellowthroat, eastern towhee, gray catbird, herring gull, Northern cardinal, osprey, red-eyed vireo, song sparrow, white-throated sparrow
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Friday, September 3rd, 2010
 Veery. Ack! Slept late. Up and dressed in a hurry, to Beech Hill by 7:45 a.m. Hazy sun, warm and muggy still, with just a taste of strangeness in the breeze—strangeness, perhaps, because Hurricane Earl is on the way? Who knows. But chickadees were chatting and chittering in the distance, so I had hopes of seeing a few silent bird species chowing down before the storm. Because they must know change is coming. If only fall migration.
 Chestnut-sided warbler (juvenile). After our first few hundred paces, Jack’s and mine, we’d counted some typical species, then stopped in a sunny part of the trail when I heard an unfamiliar chip! call from the undergrowth. I never did see the source of the chip!, but I did spot a young chestnut-sided warbler that zipped up into a tree in front of us. They sure are fast flyers—or sure can be.
Soon after, I heard another chip! This one sounded sort of like a white-throat, but a little different. We stopped again, and again another bird flitted silently up near us—a red-eyed vireo this time, and a great photo-op, but I passed it up, silly me. Instead, I got a ghostly shot of what was sure enough a white-throated sparrow peeping at us from beyond a thicket of old summer leaves.
 Northern harrier. Entering the open fields, I scanned the distance, as I always do. A golden haze hung in the east over the bay. And there not far off, a marsh hawk—a northern harrier—dipped and veered over a grassy slope, its white rump flashing.
Before long, reaching the summit, I was watching another hawk—a sparrow hawk, a kestrel—flapping up and over Beech Nut. It soon disappeared, but then looking out to sea again, again I spotted the harrier (or another one) dipping and hovering over the same far eastern field.
 White-throated sparrow. Although most birds I listed today were silent, toward Beech Hill Road I heard the distinctive alarm notes of a rose-breasted grosbeak and a northern cardinal. Marauding bands of chickadees were sweeping through that area also—but nothing else too interesting showed up. In fact, it took until we’d already crested the summit again and plunged into the trees for the next bird to pop up. Also silent. Flitted up into a twig very near the trail. We froze, it froze. At first I thought it an ovenbird, but I quickly saw it was a thrush. Specifically, a veery. I bet we watched each other for a good three minutes, if not more.
Nothing but a single vireo down the lower wooded trail—quite the contrast to yesterday—until we made the turn onto the last leg before the parking lot. I thought I caught sight of another silent, mouse-like bird jumping off the trail and into the brush. We stopped. Waited. A small movement. Sure enough, a quiet little bird. An ovenbird, ironically. When it moved, it seemed so subtle as hardly to influence the universe at all.
But I got a ghostly photo.
 Ovenbird. Beech Hill List
Beginning at 7:45 a.m., I hiked all trails.
1. Black-capped chickadee
2. Common yellowthroat
3. Gray catbird
4. Black-billed cuckoo (voice)
5. Eastern towhee (voice)
6. Blue jay (voice)
7. American robin (voice)
8. Chestnut-sided warbler
9. Cedar waxwing
10. White-throated sparrow
11. Red-eyed vireo
12. Northern harrier
13. Song sparrow
14. Kestrel
15. American crow (voice)
16. American goldfinch (voice)
17. Common raven (voice)
18. Rose-breasted grosbeak (voice)
19. Northern cardinal (voice)
20. Mourning dove
21. Veery
22. Ovenbird
Elsewhere
23. Herring gull
24. Tufted titmouse
25. Rock pigeon
 The bay.
Tags: American crow, American goldfinch, American robin, black-billed cuckoo, black-capped chickadee, blue jay, Cedar waxwing, chestnut-sided warbler, common raven, common yellowthroat, eastern towhee, gray catbird, herring gull, kestrel, mourning dove, Northern cardinal, Northern harrier, ovenbird, red-eyed vireo, rock pigeon, rose-breasted grosbeak, song sparrow, tufted titmouse, veery, white-throated sparrow
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Thursday, September 2nd, 2010
 Morning wood (no, not that kind). Up early. Warm early—for the third straight day. But Hurricane Earl should brush the coast tomorrow afternoon or evening, so next week we should have some nice sleeping weather for a change.
For some reason this morning I thought to count my paces up and over the hill. You might recall—very doubtful you will recall—I counted paces from the far parking lot up and over on the return trip down the lower wooded trail back on 17th July. Total paces: 3,447. Well, today I counted my steps while ascending the upper wooded trail (a shorter route) and ended up with 3,105. So the approximate total paces I’ve been walking every day up and down Beech Hill is somewhere around 6,552.
Wow. No wonder my aging heels hurt at random times during the day.
 Common yellowthroat (female). Sun. Warmth. Humidity. Steam. Quiet. Heard random gangs of chickadees in the periphery. Heard catbird and yellowthroat (buddy species). Heard waxwings—and surprised a flicker on the trail. Also heard a robin for the second straight day. And, at the first opening up by the lower fields, spotted a hummingbird buzzing away to the north.
But nothing much else. No crow, no goldfinch. Jays, yes. Sparrows, three species. But not much else. And my only decent photo was of a female yellowthroat early in our hike.
So I was figuring it to be just one of those sultry, lazy, uninteresting birding days—until we entered the lower wooded trail. I’d listed fifteen species by then, is all. But right away a pewee made it sixteen. Then I heard the repeated call of a hairy woodpecker. Seventeen. Then, finally, I heard the voices of both crow and goldfinch, one right after the other. Nineteen. And as we neared the parking lot, the black-billed cuckoo. Twenty.
That seemed fine to me, twenty—but as we got a hundred paces or so from the end of our hike, a little pod of chickadees moved through. I scanned the shady hardwoods. Three or four chickadees, and a couple other birds. Two phoebes, appearing out of nowhere. And also a red-eyed vireo, eyeing us with its red eye. (The dimness was not conducive to clear photos, alas.) And then two or three redstarts, flitting around together like butterflies.
I waited a good long time for the perfect redstart photo, but it was not to be.
In afternoon—when the temperature reached nearly 90 degrees (F), I might just note—I walked Jack around to the side yard and noticed four or five grackles hanging around in the understory up the hill here. Seems to me evidence of impending fall migration.
Beech Hill List
Beginning at 6:45 a.m., I hiked all trails.
1. White-breasted nuthatch (voice)
2. Black-capped chickadee
3. Common yellowthroat
4. Gray catbird
5. Eastern towhee (voice)
6. American robin (voice)
7. Northern flicker
8. White-throated sparrow
9. Cedar waxwing (voice)
10. Blue jay (voice)
11. Ruby-throated hummingbird
12. Song sparrow
13. Savannah sparrow
14. Mourning dove
15. Red-eyed vireo
16. Eastern wood-pewee (voice)
17. Hairy woodpecker (voice)
18. American crow (voice)
19. American goldfinch (voice)
20. Black-billed cuckoo (voice)
21. Eastern phoebe
22. American redstart
Elsewhere
23. House sparrow
24. Herring gull
25. Common grackle
Tags: American crow, American goldfinch, American redstart, American robin, black-billed cuckoo, black-capped chickadee, blue jay, Cedar waxwing, common yellowthroat, Eastern phoebe, eastern towhee, eastern wood-pewee, gray catbird, hairy woodpecker, mourning dove, northern flicker, red-eyed vireo, ruby throated hummingbird, savannah sparrow, song sparrow, white-breasted nuthatch, white-throated sparrow
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Wednesday, September 1st, 2010
 Broad-winged hawk (juvenile). If yesterday was hot, today might’ve even been hotter. Aw, not all that hot, really, for a guy who grew up in Texas—not 90 degrees, I don’t think. But probably mid- to upper-80s (F). In fact, before 7 a.m., as Jack and I were climbing the green, wooded hillside this first day of September, the air must’ve been at least room temperature. Maybe even 75 or so.
 Yellow-rumped warbler. Not too many birds occurred right away. They were silent, hunkered down out of the heat, hiding out. I heard the usual summer residents—catbird and yellowthroat seem always near each other—including a brief tut-tut of a robin. (They’re extremely quiet up there these days.) More young yellow-rumps chipping about in the foliage, both the young hardwoods coming up and the grove of spruces up top. And flickers—in fact, as we came up over the summit and descended the open trail, there appeared up ahead a family of at least five flickers (foraging along the trail with a single mourning dove).
They took flight as we approached, the flickers—one by one, in undulating flight, their white rumps flashing, emitting their wicka-wicka-wicka calls. I have to say I rather like flickers. I like the little red heart tattoo they wear on the backs of their necks.
Steamy out in the bay. Owls head jutted out into the bay amid a cloud of haze.
Saw both phoebes and alder flycatchers perched in the tips of trees. Their chip notes are similar, those two.
 Common yellowthroat. On our return trip—Jack panting quickly, my T-shirt soaked with sweat—we eagerly dove into the shady wooded section. I’d counted eighteen birds by then and didn’t expect but maybe a couple more. But the lower wooded trail surprised: first a pewee’s lazy, poignant, dying-summertime call; then the exaggeratedly elongated call of a pileated woodpecker just beyond sight through the trees; then a black-and-white warbler’s somewhat abbreviated call lower down; and finally, as we were only a couple hundred yards from the parking lot, the sudden appearance of a young broad-winged hawk.
A broadwing is a wonderful thing. This young bird checked us out, Jack and me, then flapped up to a more distant branch and observed us head on (alas, my auto-focus betrayed me). Finally, it flapped silently out of sight. I found myself wondering if this bird is the reason for the couple piles of remnant feathers I’ve seen the past week or so along the wooded trails.
 Northern flicker. Beech Hill List
Beginning at 6:45 a.m., I hiked all trails.
1. American goldfinch
2. Black-capped chickadee
3. Cedar waxwing
4. Gray catbird
5. Common yellowthroat
6. American robin (voice)
7. White-breasted nuthatch (voice)
8. Yellow-rumped warbler
9. Song sparrow
10. Eastern towhee (voice)
11. White-throated sparrow
12. Mourning dove
13. Eastern phoebe
14. Alder flycatcher
15. Blue jay (voice)
16. Savannah sparrow
17. Northern flicker
18. American crow (voice)
19. Eastern wood-pewee (voice)
20. Pileated woodpecker (voice)
21. Black-and-white warbler (voice)
22. Broad-winged hawk
Elsewhere
23. House sparrow
24. Northern cardinal
25. Herring gull
26. European starling
 Red squirrel.
Tags: alder flycatcher, American crow, American goldfinch, American robin, black-and-white warbler, black-capped chickadee, blue jay, broad-winged hawk, Cedar waxwing, common yellowthroat, Eastern phoebe, eastern towhee, eastern wood-pewee, European starling, gray catbird, herring gull, house sparrow, mourning dove, Northern cardinal, northern flicker, pileated woodpecker, savannah sparrow, song sparrow, white-breasted nuthatch, white-throated sparrow, yellow-rumped warbler
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| Bird Report is an intermittent record of what's outside my window in Rockport, Maine, USA (44°08'N latitude, 69°06'W longitude), and vicinity. —Brian Willson |
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