A lovely hike this morning. Dog and I did what I call the Millcreek Ridge Circuit—up the switchback to the Pipeline Trail lookout, then climb the ridge west a while, then take the shady valley back down to the lower trail.
New (to me) flowers blooming every day, it seems (some with lovely fresh smells I’ve never smelled). First time I’ve seen all the shades of spring green—plus, of course, the bright June colors of western birds.
(Note: I believe the gnatcatchers have fledged.)
Grandeur Peak Area List Beginning at 7:45 a.m., I hiked about 1,200 feet up a mountain.
1. Black-billed Magpie* 2. Black-headed Grosbeak 3. Black-chinned Hummingbird 4. Lazuli Bunting 5. House Finch* 6. Woodhouse’s Scrub-jay 7. Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 8. Spotted Towhee 9. Rock Pigeon 10. American Robin* 11. Song Sparrow** (v) 12. Pine Siskin (v) 13. Chipping Sparrow (v) 14. Warbling Vireo (v) 15. Chukar 16. Orange-crowned Warbler (v) 17. Western Tanager (v) 18. California Quail*
Elsewhere
19. House Sparrow (v) 20. European Starling 21. Mourning Dove 22. Black-capped Chickadee (v)
Mammals
None
(v) Voice only *Also elsewhere **Voice only elsewhere
There’s a high slope with a southern exposure along the trail I hike with Jack each day, a slope that’s dotted with Utah Juniper trees. Besides the junipers, it’s mostly a sagebrush barren—with a few scrub-oaks sprinkled here and there. But I’ve come to know the little junipers as good places to look for birds.
For one thing, there’re the little blue berries—hundreds, thousands of them. Certainly they attract thrushes (solitaires, robins), corvids (magpies, scrub-jays), finches, and a bunch of other birds. Their branches are perches for singers like Chipping Sparrows and Spotted Towhees and Lazuli Buntings. Nearly every time I’ve seen a Black-throated Gray Warbler, it’s at least stopped off briefly in a juniper’s thick, safe interior.
For another thing, they offer shade—and a barrier to hide behind while sneaking up on, say, a singing Warbling Vireo. Also they make for a nice green-dotted high-desert landscape.
As we used to do in Texas, some locals here call them “cedars.” But they’re junipers to me.
Grandeur Peak Area List Beginning at 7:45 a.m., I hiked several hundred feet up a mountain.
For the past two or three weeks, in one particular stretch of trail dog and I hike daily, I’ve heard and/or seen at least one Warbling Vireo. I’ve really begun to like these birds a lot.
Back in Maine, before I moved out west, I encountered only a few Warbling Vireos. Not that they’re uncommon—but they clearly like the landscape hereabouts. They seem to like to hang out in bigtooth maples. And usually I hear a pair of them (today there were three) singing their warbly, un-vireo-like tune to each other, declaring their territory.
That tune has grown on me. It’s a fairly rapid warble, a bit House Finch–like but not very long, typically ending on a rising note. It’s subtle, though. As is the bird itself. Stays deep in the leaves. Doesn’t flit about too much, so they’re easy to miss.
This morning it took me ten or fifteen minutes of waiting quietly in one place to get a photo.
Grandeur Peak Area List Beginning at 7:30 a.m., I hiked several hundred feet up a mountain.
