Crowshadow.

Excitement at Beech Hill today. My own personal, internal excitement anyway.

Jack and I headed up earlier than usual lately because of a midday college football game I wanted to watch. The day being calm and still and mild (for December), a few hikers were already up there. A few birds also, but nothing too crazy. Until…

Red roof.

About half-way up I heard the unmistakable cry of a Red-tailed Hawk. So clear and typical, in fact—pretty much exactly like the famous TV/movie sound clip, the trope mistakenly used for everything from an eagle to a buzzard—that my first thought was I must’ve set the sound as someone’s cell-phone ring tone. So I checked my back pocket. No phone there. I’d left it in the truck.

And then I heard the cry again.

So I focused my binoculars in the direction of the cry—toward the south, toward the Rockville Ridge—and I’ll be damned if I didn’t spot a hawk circling over in that direction. That’s the first time I’ve ever heard the voice of a red-tail in the wild.

   Cry of the Red-tailed Hawk (from the Cornell Lab’s AllAboutBirds.com)

Then dog and I headed home for the football game.

Beech Hill List
Beginning at 11:15 a.m., I hiked the open trail.

1. Black-capped Chickadee**
2. American Crow*
3. Red-tailed Hawk
4. American Goldfinch (v)
5. Downy Woodpecker (v)

Elsewhere

6. Tufted Titmouse
7. Dark-eyed Junco (v)
8. Mourning Dove
9. White-throated Sparrow (v)
10. Herring Gull

v = Voice only
*Also elsewhere
**Voice only elsewhere