American goldfinch.

Slept a lot better last night. Sun came up. Not a cloud in the sky.

Which meant that—after a few good hours of work—I broke down and took a fine bike ride. My touch of bursitis (or whatever it is) didn’t bother me much, made pretty good time. Plus, I spotted an osprey flying low over the business block in town and a broad-winged hawk soaring low over the wooded stretch of Route 1 up toward Rockport Village. No clouds up there, but two nice raptors. And herring gulls.

Also goldfinches, of course. They’re everywhere.

White admiral.

Among our passerines, I tend to gravitate toward the secretive little insect-eaters—wood-warbers, vireos, flycatchers, swallows, even cuckoos—that you rarely find frequenting feeders. Most of these species you’ll find during nesting season with their thin bills crammed with the wings and legs of bugs, or bashing fat green caterpillars on a tree limb. There’s just something about their tiny fast-twitch muscles, the fact that they must be constantly in motion to hunt enough food to survive and thrive. And they somehow make it easier to endure our black flies and mosquitos, even ticks. Accordingly, I tend to overlook the seed-eating birds so familiar around our backyard feeders. But this time of year, you just can’t ignore goldfinches.

Maybe it’s that they seem incapable of silent flight. You can hear their cheery percolating call as they bounce around the sky—often you can hear them but can’t quite pick them out of the endless blue. Yesterday on Beech Hill, one circled me and Jack three or four times, as if checking us out, or perhaps alerting his cohorts to our presence, of course calling the whole time.

For the past few weeks they’ve been up there. It’s that time of year. The time of year for cicadas, and crickets, and goldfinches.

Thistle.

They were the most vocal species at Beech Hill this late afternoon. Oh, other seedeaters frequent the hill: purple finches, rose-breasted grosbeaks, several species of sparrow. But aside from song sparrows, I haven’t seen (or heard) many of these in recent days. Just goldfinches. A summer bird. Merry, sun-colored, seemingly ever-celebratory. Our latitude would be quite the worse without ’em.

Jack and I met several other humans and dogs on the hill today. And I heard—then spotted—an osprey crying from the tip of a conifer down the southeast slope. Later, the fish hawk soared close to the summit, still crying, and I wondered if an osprey might ever choose one of the spruces up there to nest in.

Heard or saw (mostly heard) many of the usual species on the hill—except catbird. None made an appearance today. However, our secret plot of blackberries continues to offer up fresh ripe fruit, day after day. Today I ate sixteen berries. (Yes, I’m obsessed with counting things.)

Tonight the sky remains clear. Starry. Cool. I wonder where all those goldfinches are roosting now.

Beech Hill List
Beginning at 5:15 p.m., I hiked the open trail.

1. American goldfinch
2. Black-capped chickadee (voice)
3. American crow (voice)
4. Osprey
5. Song sparrow
6. Ruby-throated hummingbird (hum)
7. Common yellowthroat (voice)
8. Eastern towhee (voice)
9. Alder flycatcher (voice)
10. Cedar waxwing
11. Northern flicker (voice)

Elsewhere

12. Herring gull
13. Rock pigeon
14. Broad-winged hawk
15. Northern cardinal