Purple sandpiper.
Woke up. Got out of bed. Saw blue sky up overhead. The temperature, though, seemed pretty chilly—somewhere in the low 50s (F)—and I noticed a bit of wind playing around in the naked upper branches of the oaks. I also noticed the song of the cardinal, the fee-bee of the phoebe, the caw of the crow. Particularly noteworthy were the calls of a number of goldfinches—bunches of them out there this morning, for some reason. New arrivals, perhaps?
Purple sandpipers.
It being Sunday, dog and I headed to Beech Hill for church. Lumpy blankets of clouds had moved in, interspersed with patches of blue, making it a partly sunny day. Great fields of sunlit landscape scraped across the inland hills. There were no ravens on the hill. There were no hawks. A solitary song sparrow flitted out of a thicket of brush. I heard a herring gull, a titmouse, and (again) quite a few goldfinches. I heaven heard the gobble of a turkey from down near South Street somewhere. I sort of had hopes of spotting an osprey—several of my friends have seen their first of 2010—but no dice. That’s what I get for having expectations.
Napping purple sandpiper.
Then again, returning home, I heard out the window the percussive call of a chipping sparrow. By golly, my first of the year.
A few hours later, I figured it was about time to walk the breakwater. Sunday bunches of other people and dogs were there. So were great rafts of common eiders, a few black ducks, a pair of red-breasted mergansers, black-backed gulls—and a double-crested cormorant in flight. Another first-of-year bird.
No loons in the harbor. Nor any long-tailed ducks. But there did suddenly come a flurry of chattering on the island side about two-thirds of the way out: purple sandpipers. Dozens of them. Scores of them. While stopping to snap a mess of photos (my red heeler is such a patient dog), I couldn’t help but imagine these were migrating birds simply making a quick stop-off en route to their breeding grounds in the Arctic tundra. On our return trip to shore, I saw a flock in crazy veering flight low over the waves, making sharp, seemingly random changes-of-direction. These ended up on a nearby, seaweed-covered stretch of rip-rap farther down the breakwater. Just catching a breather on their way to a far-northern latitude.
Tonight, from the deck, I stopped to listen for a while. I heard no woodcocks, as I usually do at this season. I wonder where, this year, migration has taken them.
Sandpiper flock.
Today’s List
Northern cardinal
Eastern phoebe
American goldfinch
Song sparrow
House finch
American crow
American robin
Herring gull
Black-capped chickadee
Mourning dove
Tufted titmouse
Wild turkey
Chipping sparrow
Northern flicker
European starling
Common eider
Great black-backed gull
Black duck
Red-breasted merganser
Double-crested cormorant
Purple sandpiper
Beech Hill view.
Tags: American crow, American goldfinch, American robin, black duck, black-capped chickadee, common eider, eastern phoebe, European starling, great black-backed gull, herring gull, house finch, mourning dove, northern cardinal, northern flicker, purple sandpiper, red-breasted merganser, song sparrow, tufted titmouse, wild turkey
