Penobscot Bay.
Second straight day of afternoon hikes for Jack and me, which I believe is a first this year. Woke up, saw that it was raining lightly, didn’t feel like walking in it, and so blew off our early hike for the second straight day.
Beech Nut.
Sure enough, much of the morning passed under overcast skies, with occasional drizzle. The rush of tires sounded against the wet Route 1 pavement outside my office windows. But in early afternoon, things began to dry up, and the sun even peeked through a time or two. I managed to take a bike ride, in fact, without ever feeling a raindrop against my skin.
So after a little after-hours work and supper for dog, we headed on up. A wide triangle of rumpled cloud had by then wedged itself between earth and setting sun, so I didn’t have hope for many photos. (Too dim.) But birds still made themselves known, as they tend to do somehow: chickadee (call), crow (caw), and rose-breasted grosbeak (squeak-toy chip note); yellowthroat (chip), towhee (wheep!), white throated sparrow (tseet!). I did finally see a chickadee and a yellowthroat, and at the summit a quiet lingering savannah sparrow. And, oh yeah, a furtive gray catbird. But most species were simply off in the bushes somewhere giving the sort of lazy, sleepy, lullaby-type calls peculiar to a day’s evening.
Dragonflies all over the hill. A dark, graceful, unidentifiable bird veering down into a thicket for the night. Sunbeams splitting western clouds.
There was the mew of catbirds. The short, jumping-jack-style flight call of yellowthroats. And the surprise veer! of two or three veeries calling back and forth along the lower wooded trail. In fact, I’d counted only eleven birds by the time we entered that trail, Jack and I, and was hoping somehow I’d get an even dozen. Which I did with the veery. And very soon after, another thrush—American robin—called, and then the same cardinal I heard last evening (I’m convinced) began to chip off in the periphery.
There’s just something so sweet and comforting about the evening voices of birds in the process of bedding down.
Descending the open trail.
Beech Hill List
Beginning at 5:45 p.m., I hiked all trails.
1. Black-capped chickadee
2. American crow (voice)
3. Common yellowthroat
4. Rose-breasted grosbeak (voice)
5. Eastern towhee (voice)
6. White-throated sparrow (voice)
7. American goldfinch (voice)
8. Savannah sparrow
9. Gray catbird
10. Hairy woodpecker (voice)
11. Song sparrow (voice)
12. Veery (voice)
13. American robin (voice)
14. Northern cardinal (voice)
Elsewhere
15. Herring gull
16. House sparrow
Tags: American crow, American goldfinch, American robin, black-capped chickadee, common yellowthroat, eastern towhee, gray catbird, hairy woodpecker, herring gull, house sparrow, northern cardinal, rose-breasted grosbeak, savannah sparrow, song sparrow, veery, white-throated sparrow
