Another warm one (hot one?)—a little warmer than yesterday’s room temperature experience at the beginning of my hike up the wooded trail with dog. Captain Jack spent more of our excursion panting.
Before we hiked, though, first thin in the morning, I found the carcass of a crow lying on the lawn. I spoke to the dead bird as I picked its mortal remains gently up and tossed them off into a bushy green patch.
The rest of the birds we encountered were all alive and well—although we didn’t encounter many on account (I suppose) of the heat and humidity.
Beech Hill List Starting at 7:24 a.m. EST (8:24 DST), I hiked all trails.
1. Pileated Woodpecker (v, drumming) 2. Blue Jay 3. Eastern Wood-pewee (v) 4. Black-capped Chickadee** 5. White-breasted Nuthatch (v) 6. Red-eyed Vireo (v) 7. Hermit Thrush (v) 8. Song Sparrow* 9. Common Yellowthroat 10. American Goldfinch** 11. Turkey Vulture
Elsewhere
12. Carolina Wren (v) 13. Herring Gull 14. Wild Turkey 15. House Sparrow 16. Rock Pigeon 17. Mourning Dove
(v) Voice only *Also elsewhere **Voice only elsewhere †First-of-year
It was a warm one. Starting up the trail early, dog and I “enjoyed” a sort of humid room temperature. Once we got out of the shade, the air got summertime-warm in a hurry. Still, what a nice hike.
Mainly because of the variety of bird life. A vireo posed. So did a Broad-winged Hawk and a Yellow-bellied Flycatcher. Most interestingly, a young Cape May Warbler perched high in a summit spruce and might as well have begged to have his picture took—one of very few of the species I’ve seen up there.
In afternoon, I rode around on my bicycle in 80-something-degree (F) temperatures. Seems we get us a variety of weather around here, too.
Beech Hill List Starting at 6:45 a.m. EST (7:45 DST), I hiked all trails.
1. Red-eyed Vireo 2. White-breasted Nuthatch (v) 3. Blue Jay 4. Gray Catbird 5. Eastern Wood-pewee (v) 6. Hairy Woodpecker 7. Broad-winged Hawk 8. American Crow* (v) 9. Black-capped Chickadee** 10. Eastern Towhee (v) 11. Song Sparrow 12. Common Yellowthroat (v) 13. Yellow-bellied Flycatcher 14. Cape May Warbler† 15. American Goldfinch 16. Downy Woodpecker (v) 17. Cedar Waxwing 18. Northern Flicker (v)
Another nippy morning—low-60s (F) to start—that warmed into a lovely late-summer day. On the hill, birds were stirring, including one species I hadn’t encountered since spring: Scarlet Tanager. I heard a high, loud, abrupt call that I didn’t recognize coming from up in the wooded canopy. Turned out to be a female tanager. (Learned another bird call today!)
