Beech Hill at sunset.

Another bright one. Another cold one. My outdoor thermometer showed 7 degrees (F) when first I checked, about 7-ish. Out the window above the kitchen sink I watched a crow on the limb of an oak overhanging the parking lot, in the light of the rising sun, preening.

Poured hot coffee. Stepped out onto the back deck. Right away I heard the spring love song of a chickadee—fee bee!

Stuck inside working most of the day, but in afternoon I headed to town. Saw a tight bunch of about a dozen starlings veer over onto the sunlit southern face of a small roadside bank, where they began pecking around in the exposed grass. In Rockland, ring-billed gulls and herring gulls and rock pigeons dipped and swirled, as usual. Not long after, in Rockport Village, I caught sight of another flock of pigeons that apparently frequent the roofs of the Main Street buildings there.

I keep my new snowshoes in my pickup. My return from the village takes me near the Rockville Street trailhead at Beech Hill. These two facts prompted me to take a solitary hike at the end of the day.

Mine was the only vehicle in the parking lot. Moving into the woods, I scanned for the barred owl that hangs out in that area (I’d seen it once myself), but it didn’t appear. As usual, I headed up the less traveled, lower trail—my preferred route at this season for its greater distance and taller trees. Whereas the upper trail showed heavy traffic, after a hundred yards or so I noticed no human footprints in my path. However, I did see canine tracks. The animal had headed in the opposite direction, down the hill, a single dog, or fox, or coyote. Its track never varied; it’d dependably followed the well-used trail.

Blurry barred owl.

About half-way up I decided it must’ve been a coyote. The tracks were larger than a fox’s, the gait was long. I’d have imagined it was a dog, but no stray domestic dog would’ve hurried down the trail the way this animal had. Perhaps it’d passed this way last night. Or in early morning. At one point, near the top, where the trail veers into a wide curve, the coyote had taken a short cut off to the left; I met up with its tracks again at the end of the curve. Also toward the top I noticed other recent canine tracks coming in and moving away—some small like a fox’s, most about the same size as the main tracks. All I could figure is the hill has its share of song dogs.

It makes sense. My own back hillside, a couple miles away, has a family of coyotes that I hear singing late at night at random times of year. And Beech Hill has plenty of rodents—rabbits and squirrels and voles.

At the top of the trail I took my usual picture of the summit, but the sun setting behind the hill moved me also to take a photo from a different angle. And on the way back I headed off the trail for some shots of the bay at gloaming. Things remained quiet on the way down. I took the upper trail—the one I like in spring and summer, for the warblers. Intermittently I’d stop to listen to the sound of the wind in the trees: the faint clatter and squeak of the hardwood branches against each other, the sighs of the conifers.

Approaching the parking lot, I scanned for the owl again but detected no movement. No birds or animals of any kind on the hill this day. But then, in the dimness near the road, I saw a brown gray shape fly silently from a tall tree near the entrance to the limb of another several yards away. The owl. Quietly, I removed my snowshoes (it’s hard to sneak up on anything wearing snowshoes), grabbed my camera, and headed toward the bird. Two steps later, it flew off to the west along the road—so I gave up, started up my truck, headed out.

But passing the stretch where the owl had seemed to go I looked up and saw it perched in a limb overhanging the road. Turned off to the side. Took out my camera. Slipped out the door. Snapped off a couple shots through my long lens—too blurry. Twisted off the lens in hopes of using my flash, but then the owl flew off again.

Maybe my third sighting will be the charm.

Today’s list:

American crow
Black-capped chickadee
European starling
Herring gull
Ring-billed gull
Rock pigeon
Barred owl

Penobscot Bay at evening.

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