The upper wooded trail.

A foggy, drippy sort of day. Foggy all day, pretty much—and the landscape luxuriated in it. I stuck around the desk all day, with a quick trip to town. Man, was it busy: high traffic, filled-up parking lots, crowds in the supermarket. Which made my end-of-day hike with Jack all the more sweet and peaceful.

Chestnut-sided warbler.

I didn’t expect much in the way of bird activity, but—yet again—Nature would surprise me. Coming around the first turn, just where they were yesterday, we came upon a chattering gaggle of chickadees. Stopped, scanned, and saw several little birds flitting about in a young trailside tree. And not only chickadees (surprise, surprise). In fact, the first little bird I spotted was a ruby-crowned kinglet. First kinglet I’d seen up there in, well months. Also noticed at least a couple of chestnut-sided warblers. Counting the chickadees, there must’ve been eight or ten birds in that single tree.

One by one they zipped over into other trees ahead of us, and I got a glimpse of a young (or female) redstart. Four species within the first few minutes of our hike. Kind of dark for decent photos, though.

Cloaked in fog, the woods seemed lush and mysterious. Aside from the sound of water dripping from upper branches, all was quiet, allowing me to hear the faint mew! of a catbird, the squee! of a waxwing, and the distant cries of crows and gulls. After a while, a towhee. And then (another nice surprise), the clear call of a young raven.

Song sparrow.

Nothing up at the summit except a lot of fog and a single song sparrow. And a high, peaceful feeling.

Returning down the lower wooded trail, I was careful to mind my stops on the slippery rocks down there. From recent experience, I’ve learned that instinctively lunging to break a fall will aggravate my upper arm injury, so my idea was 1) to avoid falling or, if I happened to, 2) to lunge with my left hand. I wasn’t sure I could manage 2), though, being lopsidedly right-handed.

Had quite a few more birds down there—spotted a white-throated sparrow and a yellowthroat, heard flicker, vireo, and pewee. Then, coming around one of the last little turns before the brook, I turned my head toward the croak of a wood frog and (you guessed it) slipped on a slick rock and went down fast. Amazingly, perhaps because I was holding my camera in my right hand, my left hand took the brunt of it. My relief was so great that I didn’t at all mind the little puncture wound at the base of my right thumb. In fact, I found the little ribbon of blood dripping off the webbing between my thumb and forefinger kind of cool.

Black-capped chickadee.

Back at the pickup, I found some paper towels and sopped up all remnants of my (very minor) wound. At home later, after I forget to collect the paper towel from where I’d dropped it near the door, Jack ate it. Consider it the icing on the cake.

Beech Hill List
Beginning at 4:45 p.m., I hiked the wooded trails.

1. Black-capped chickadee
2. Ruby-crowned kinglet
3. Chestnut-sided warbler
4. American redstart
5. Gray catbird (v)
6. Cedar waxwing (v)
7. American crow* (v)
8. Herring gull* (v)
9. Eastern towhee
10. Common raven
11. Song sparrow
12. White-throated sparrow
13. Common yellowthroat
14. American goldfinch (v)
15. Northern flicker (v)
16. Red-eyed vireo (v)
17. Eastern wood-pewee (v)

Elsewhere

18. Rock pigeon
19. Northern cardinal (v)

v = Voice only
*Also elsewhere