17 February 2025

Archive for January, 2018

Woodpecker at Work

Saturday, January 27th, 2018
Pileated Woodpecker (female), Beech Hill Preserve, Rockport, Maine, 27 January 2018.

Pileated Woodpecker (female).

This overcast morning, right at the end of my hike with Jack—after I’d already let him in the pickup, in fact—I heard the call of a Pileated Woodpecker. It grew nearer. And a female woodpecker approached through the trees and landed in a berry bush, where she plucked a few. Then she headed over to a nearby tree. I managed to sneak up for a video (see below).

After she’d drilled a pretty good-sized hole, I heard the drumming of what must’ve been her mate up the hill a ways. She heard it, too, shinnied up the big dead pine trunk (which I watched the male excavate a few Christmases ago), and at the very top let off a loud cry before flapping away.

Beech Hill List
Beginning at 9:45 a.m., I hiked the open trail.

1. American Crow*
2. Black-capped Chickadee
3. Tufted Titmouse
4. White-breasted Nuthatch
5. American Robin
6. Hairy Woodpecker (v)
7. Pileated Woodpecker
8. Golden-crowned Kinglet (v)
9. American Goldfinch
10. Dark-eyed Junco (v)

Elsewhere

11. Herring Gull

v = Voice only
*Also elsewhere
*Voice only elsewhere

 

Not a Cloud in the Sky

Saturday, January 27th, 2018

 

Red-tailed Hawk, Beech Hill Preserve, Rockport, Maine, 26 January 2018.

Red-tailed Hawk.

Not a cloud in the sky this nippy morning. But there was a Red-tailed Hawk. (Also on the hill flitted twelve or fifteen bluebirds, accompanied by a couple of Yellow-rumped Warblers.)

Eastern Bluebirds, Beech Hill Preserve, Rockport, Maine, 26 January 2018.

Eastern Bluebirds.

Beech Hill List
Beginning at 10:30 a.m., I hiked the open trail.

1. Eastern Bluebird
2. American Goldfinch (v)
3. Yellow-rumped Warbler
4. Black-capped Chickadee** (v)
5. Red-tailed Hawk

Elsewhere

6. American Crow
7. Herring Gull
8. Mallard

v = Voice only
**Voice only elsewhere

 

Hardy Thrushes

Thursday, January 25th, 2018

 

Eastern Bluebird (female), Beech Hill Preserve, Rockport, Maine, 25 January 2018.

Eastern Bluebird (female).

Warm day, cold day. Today was the latter—low teens (F) when dog and I hit the hill at mid-morning. Thought I heard a bluebird at the parking lot. Definitely heard bluebirds up the hill a ways: a small flock flitting about the slopes. Soon after, I saw a small flock of robins also.

Eastern Bluebird (male), Beech Hill Preserve, Rockport, Maine, 25 January 2018.

Eastern Bluebird (male).

Couple of hardy thrush species.

Beech Hill List
Beginning at 10 a.m., I hiked the open trail.

1. Black-capped Chickadee
2. American Crow* (v)
3. Eastern Bluebird
4. American Robin
5. Northern Flicker

Elsewhere

6. White-throated Sparrow (v)
7. Herring Gull

v = Voice only
*Also elsewhere

 

 
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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