Sun over Chickawaukie.

An overcast morning. Just a few snowflakes flurrying down. Outside, crows called to each other. A titmouse sang its spring love song from somewhere across the road. Also heard the resident house sparrows chirping, and a solitary ring-billed gull flew by.

Took off earlier than usual to run errands and such. While driving through Rockport Village, I happened to spot a good-sized flock of mallards flying fast and low over the harbor. Then, en route to Beech Hill, I saw a blue jay perched in a small roadside tree just as a group of small passerines arrived in the same tree. I couldn’t ID the little birds but wondered if the jay had them riled.

Snowy sun over Beech Hill.

No one else in the Beech Hill parking lot—which struck me as a little odd, it being midday on a Saturday. Then again, the flurries had by then become a steady light snow. The day was warm enough, however, that I wore only a hooded sweatshirt and didn’t even need gloves. True, snowshoes were still in order.

I heard the notes of a hairy woodpecker in the surrounding trees.

As we came up the trail the snow grew steadier, while high in the southern sky the sun worked to poke through. An odd combination: snowflakes flying this side of a yellow-white disk just hanging up there motionless. The inland hills soon vanished beyond the great cloud of snow.

Then I heard something. We stopped. A low ooo-ah! ooo-ah! One of the curious calls of a common raven coming from down toward South Street. I looked for it but never saw it.

Jack nosing a feather.

At the summit, I heard crows. We circled Beech Nut and started back down. There partially buried in snow on the trail lay a single feather. A black-and-white flight feather. As I’ve noted before, I’m not so adept at identifying the birds that feathers come from—but this one reminded me of the plumage of a road-killed pileated woodpecker I studied on the shoulder of Route 1 while cycling a couple years ago. Jack stuck his nose in while I took a photo.

Looked up: three crows flapping toward us from the south, distantly spaced. About half-way down, I heard the raven’s oo-ah! again and, from the opposite direction, the lonesome cry of a flicker.

Beech Nut.

Near the road I heard the repeated calls of a robin. (Nice.) And the faint beep-beep! of a nuthatch. And the chatterings of a chickadee. Then we met four humans and a (leashed) dog ascending. “Beautiful day,” I said. They all seemed to agree.

In town afterward, I saw intermittent herring gulls and a large flock of pigeons wheeling around the sky near the old Van Baalen’s building. The flock seemed frantic enough that I scanned for a raptor but saw none.

After a couple inches of snowfall, the precipitation stopped—but not before muffling the sound of the traffic on Route 1.

Beech Hill List
Beginning at 11:45 a.m., I hiked the open trail.

1. Hairy woodpecker
2. Common raven
3. American crow
4. Northern flicker
5. American robin
6. White-breasted nuthatch
7. Black-capped chickadee

Elsewhere

8. Tufted titmouse
9. House sparrow
10. Ring-billed gull
11. Mallard
12. Blue jay
13. Herring gull
14. Rock pigeon

The trail.