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Archive for March, 2011
Friday, March 25th, 2011
 Cloud. The temperature hung around in the 30s (F) today, but the sun kept things warm-seeming and lovely. A birdy morning at my place. While washing breakfast dishes, I looked out and saw a robin fly by. Then, out with Jack, singing: a titmouse, a house finch, house sparrows, a song sparrow, chickadees, an exceptionally vocal hairy woodpecker, and a single male cardinal emitting the sharp little tik! sound they make. And the coos of a mourning dove.
 Sky over Beech Nut. By early afternoon a jumble of big clouds moved over, and it began to spit snow. Then it stopped. Then, after a while, it spit snow again. In town were herring and ring-billed gulls—plenty of both. And people walking around wearing fewer clothes than they have been lately, despite a rather brisk wind.
Jack and I wound up at Beech hill about 4:30 for a fast hike up the open trail. The wind remained brisk, and the sky remained full of big crazy clouds. None but us up there. And crows. Two or three crows—calling to each other, strutting around on the fading snow, flapping back and forth among the low trees. The sun shone through giant dark clouds as it has the past couple days in late afternoon, spraying diffuse light over everything. Beech Hill, a photo op. The bay, scenic as a postcard.
It was a quick hike, We were up and down within a half-hour. Listening from the parking lot, I thought I heard a titmouse and a chickadee across the road in the distance—but I couldn’t be sure enough to add them to my list.
Back home I watched a golden-crowned kinglet flit madly through the small naked trees on the hill as if in a sped-up film, peeping constantly. Then, sometime after 7, I walked out onto the deck and heard the peent! of a woodcock. Not much more thrilling than that at this time of year, to me.
 Chickawaukie Lake. And just a minute ago, I stepped out again to see a fresh film of snow on the deck and a riot of stars in the night sky. And I heard the sudden sound of a small mammal shuffling through last fall’s leaves a dozen yards or so up the invisible hill. Skunk? Fox? Coon. I’ll never know.
Beech Hill List
Beginning at 4:30 p.m., I hiked the open trail.
1. American crow
Elsewhere
2. American robin
3. Tufted titmouse
4. House finch
5. Song sparrow
6. House sparrow
7. Black-capped chickadee
8. Hairy woodpecker
9. Northern cardinal
10. Mourning dove
11. Herring gull
12. Ring-billed gull
13. Golden-crowned kinglet
14. American woodcock
 Birch.
Tags: American crow, American robin, American woodcock, black-capped chickadee, golden-crowned kinglet, hairy woodpecker, herring gull, house finch, house sparrow, mourning dove, northern cardinal, ring-billed gull, song sparrow, tufted titmouse
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Thursday, March 24th, 2011
 Beech Nut. Sunny and kind of cold this morning. But the air warmed enough today to melt most of the recent snowfall. Birds around my place: crow, song sparrow, titmouse, chickadee, house finch.
Had lunch with a friend in town. (Herring gulls, rock pigeons.) After most of an afternoon of work, dog and I took off for errands and a hike up the wooded Beech Hill trail.
 The upper trail. The wooded trail just called to me, for some reason. Still a lot of snow there on the north side of the hill. But also many robins—rich-feathered Canadian robins, moving through—probably at least a hundred of them. Interspersed with fox sparrows still, and a few chickadees. I heard crows in the wood (saw a couple fly over) and herring gulls crying from the little cow farm up Rockville Street where scores like to spend time. About half-way up the trail, I saw a flicker flap quickly away, flashing its white butt feathers.
No sign of anyone at the summit. The sky, though mostly clear, was peppered with assorted clouds. A lovely afternoon sky. We paused for a minute so I could watch a big container ship round Owls Head and head off down the bay.
We descended the lower trail, as is our habit, and slogged through long stretches of muck and mud. Many, many robins.
For some reason, while hiking down, I got to thinking about human conscientiousness and fairness and life and death and nothingness and the mysterious progression of time. Maybe something about all the old rock walls crisscrossing the deep woods, or the fallen oaks, once tall and green. As I passed certain curves and landmarks I remembered the birds I’d seen and heard there in warmer, more humid weather—the yellow-billed cuckoo calling from the canopy along one steep stretch, the place of innumerable migrating yellow-rumps, the wet spots where I’d flushed woodcocks, the turkey chicks that time—which only deepened my sense of the miraculous turning of the seasons.
 American robin. Now, here, in early spring, all the the world is trembling with potential energy. In a month or so, I won’t even recognize the hill I saw today.
Driving home I saw a mourning dove perched on a utility line. And some time later, from my back deck, I watched a pair of nuthatches explore a nesting cavity in a limb of the big oak out back. They’ve nested there before.
Beech Hill List
Beginning at 4:30 p.m., I hiked the wooded trails.
1. American robin
2. Black-capped chickadee
3. American crow
4. Herring gull
5. Fox sparrow
6. Northern flicker
Elsewhere
7. House finch
8. Tufted titmouse
9. Song sparrow
10. Rock pigeon
11. Mourning dove
12. White-breasted nuthatch
 Jack in late afternoon.
Tags: American crow, American robin, black-capped chickadee, fox sparrow, herring gull, house finch, mourning dove, northern flicker, rock pigeon, song sparrow, tufted titmouse, white-breasted nuthatch
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Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011
 Beech Hill summit. A mix of sun and clouds this morning. Lots of bird activity around my place: crow, titmouse, chickadee, house finch, song sparrow—and probably something I’m forgetting. The sun poked through a time or two, melting much of the remnant ice from the places I’d shoveled late yesterday, but then, come midday, a snow shower began.
 Snowflake. About that time, Jack and I took a quick trip to town. It wasn’t quite freezing out, and the tiny snow particles made a little rat-a-tat sound on the windshield. Gulls flew in a great cloud around the roof of the old Van Baalen’s building, and I spotted a solitary pigeon above Main Street.
Drove around doing errands and finally ended up at Beech Hill about 4. A pickup in the parking lot. Then, as we got set to hike, I realized I’d forgotten my camera and so we dashed home for it. When we got back, the pickup was gone, but I could tell from the tracks that another man and dog had walked the trail before us. They might even have been the only ones.
Ours was a pretty easy hike up as we followed a fairly well-defined track through the past couple days’ snowfall. Today’s precipitation had dwindled to nearly nothing—just a few lazy flakes falling in the suddenly still air. The yellow ball of the sun glowed low in the southwest sky behind a mass of deep gray clouds, but toward the northeast a great swath of blue overhung Penobscot Bay. Every direction I looked, it seemed, offered the prospect of a spectacular landscape photo.
 Cloud. Heard—then saw—three of four crows flapping around the open fields near the summit. Heard a hairy woodpecker, then a flicker. The air turned so still up there that the remnant few snowflakes seemed to descend in slow motion. What a serene and peaceful scene.
Returning, I heard a robin calling down the southern slope. And along the road, I heard—then saw—a song sparrow. Finally, stopping to listen from the parking lot, I heard the mourning dove with the crazy up-turning notes that I’d heard there yesterday. It’s always satisfying in some strange way to know you’re listening to the voice of the very same bird you’ve listened to on some other day before.
This evening, around my place, I stopped to listen: crow, titmouse, chickadee, house finch, song sparrow. No woodcocks yet beyond that first migrating bird.
Beech Hill List
Beginning at 4:15 p.m., I hiked the open trail.
1. American crow
2. Hairy woodpecker (voice)
3. Northern flicker (voice)
4. American robin (voice)
5. Song sparrow
6. Mourning dove (voice)
Elsewhere
7. House finch
8. Tufted titmouse
9. Black-capped chickadee
10. Herring gull
11. Rock pigeon
12. Blue jay
 Bay sky.
Tags: American crow, American robin, black-capped chickadee, blue jay, hairy woodpecker, herring gull, house finch, mourning dove, northern flicker, rock pigeon, song sparrow, tufted titmouse
Posted in Lists, Observations | No Comments »
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| Bird Report is a (sometimes intermittent) record of the birds I encounter while hiking, see while driving, or spy outside my window. —Brian Willson |
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