First glance out the window comfirmed it: thick fog. The muffled moans of the fog whistles hung in the cool, humid air as dog and I headed for Beech Hill.

It promised to be a quiet hike, bird-wise. Or so I thought. First I heard the ever-vocal red-eyed vireo, and then the ovenbird, commonplace. And that was all for a good hundred yards—coincidentally, about as far as you could see in the fog. But coming up the drippy upper wooded trail, I began to hear the other resident species: towhee, catbird, chestnut-sided warbler, yellowthroat, waxwing. A rose-breasted grosbeak’s squeak-toy alarm note sounded from the canopy. A robin’s tut-tut-tut came from somewhere in the dim soft light amid the trees.

Then through the understory came the eerie, human-like cry of a raven. A young bird, I’m guessing. A single note. Plaintive. Loud. Like a falsetto wail in the middle distance, All else was quiet but for the echoing song of a solitary chestnut-sided warbler and the sound of droplets falling from tree leaves. I felt a crazy sort of déja vù—as if I’d stepped into a fairy tale first told a thousand years ago. Jack and I stopped and listened. The raven called. And called. And called again.

By the time we reached the summit, my jeans were soaked from the knee down, and I’d counted only fourteen bird species, including the raven. Only a female yellowthroat came near enough to photograph. As we approached Beech Nut, it near-about seemed invisible in the fog.

But then came the voices of tree swallow, alder flycatcher, savannah sparrow, black-and-white warbler (that odd, late-season call), and wood thrush. Mourning dove and phoebe at the summit. And coming down the open trail, a number of other songs and calls. Oddly, I didn’t hear a crow until late in our hike. But perhaps my most interesting sighting was a northern flicker.

A couple days ago my bird-identification skills were challenged when an expert birding friend pointed out I’d misidentified a purple finch as a house finch. I took it hard. But today, I recaptured my confidence with the flicker ID. I’d first detected it at the end of the upper trail on our ascent. I didn’t see it—I simply heard wingbeats, barely whistling, but coming in two flurries, with a pause between. Given the wooded locale, the slight whistle, and the suggestion of undulating flight, at once I figured it for a flicker. But I didn’t see it. I couldn’t count it.

On coming back over the hill and into the junction of the upper and lower wooded trails, we startled a bird in the path itself, which fluttered away, flying swift and low. All I could tell was that it was mostly brown and seemed to be a medium-sized perching bird. Right away I thought of the flicker. So we walked slowly and quietly several yards along the upper trail—and, sure enough, before we’d gone twenty or thirty feet, a bird took off from the ground, in undulating flight, flashing a white rump.

“Flicker,” I said to myself. “Thirty-one.”

Then we returned to the junction and took the lower trail, as is our routine. Heard the familiar vireo that hangs around up there, and a distant black-throated green warbler. And about half-way down, as we approached the big oak grove, again, the raven. Like a falsetto human cry. Spooky. Timeless. The sort of memorable sound that’s put plenty of people in a state of awe over the millennia. Both Jack and I stopped and our ears perked up. Then we also heard the croak of an adult raven. And the pair of them must have detected us, because all I saw was a flurry of big black wings in the canopy, and then the raven calls faded in volume as the birds moved away in a northeasterly direction.

Nearing the parking lot, we heard the voices of blue jays—at least one parent, at least one fledgling. Smaller birds were chipping all over the place in an effort to drive them away.

On our way home, I spotted a hawk on a power line and stopped my truck and grabbed my camera and stepped out for a photo. The hawk had flown. Back at Glen Cove some time later, I heard the distinctive trill of a pine warbler coming from up the hill. In early afternoon, I heard a gang of crows cawing at a hawk or owl or other predator up where the pine warbler had been. And during my afternoon bicycle ride, I watched a red-winged blackbird chase a pair of crows.

Finally, in lingering gray daylight, I heard the call of a titmouse: peer, peer, peer!

Beech Hill List
Beginning at 7:15 a.m., I walked all trails.

1. Red-eyed vireo (voice)
2. Ovenbird (voice)
3. Chestnut-sided warbler
4. Cedar waxwing
5. Common yellowthroat
6. Rose-breasted grosbeak
7. American robin
8. American redstart (voice)
9. Black-capped chickadee
10. Veery
11. Common raven (voice)
12. Eastern towhee
13. Gray catbird
14. American goldfinch
15. Tree swallow
16. Alder flycatcher (voice)
17. Savannah sparrow
18. Black-and-white warbler
19. Mourning dove
20. Eastern phoebe
21. Field sparrow (voice)
22. Wood thrush (voice)
23. Song sparrow
24. Yellow warbler (voice)
25. Nashville warbler (voice)
26. Hermit thrush (voice)
27. White-throated sparrow (voice)
28. Chipping sparrow (voice)
29. White-breasted nuthatch (voice)
30. American crow (voice)
31. Northern flicker
32. Black-throated green warbler (voice)
33. Blue jay

Elsewhere

34. House sparrow (voice)
35. Unidentified buteo
36. Pine warbler (voice)
37. Herring gull
38. House finch (voice)
29. Red-winged blackbird (voice)
39. Tufted titmouse (voice)