These warm, dry, late-summer mornings don’t give up a lot of bird talk. Oh, the chickadees always keep a chatter going, and the high cries of Blue-gray Gnatcatchers rises from the scrub oaks, and you can’t shut up a Woodhouse’s Scrub-jay—but the majority of species here are about as quiet as at any time of year.
And when they do pipe up, its often a single note, or subtle chatter, or other vocalization that’s mysterious to me. Near the beginning of my hike with dog, I heard a faint chattering and saw a bird head away in the distance, but I couldn’t ID it—maybe a tanager, I thought, or oriole. Then, on our regular walk down Coyote Canyon in search of Broad-tailed Hummingbird photo ops, I heard a strange note but never saw the bird.
At least toward the end of the hike I did spy a Western Tanager (a female, identified through binoculars), but who’s to say it was in fact that earlier chattering bird? Not I.
Some might feel frustrated on challenging days like this, with so few obvious signs of wild birds. Not I. It’s a challenge I love and accept.
Grandeur Peak Area List Beginning at 7:57 a.m., I hiked a few hundred feet up a mountain.
1. House Finch* 2. Woodhouse’s Scrub-jay** 3. Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 4. Black-capped Chickadee 5. Spotted Towhee 6. Lazuli Bunting 7. Broad-tailed Hummingbird 8. Mourning Dove 9. American Robin 10. Western Tanager
Elsewhere
11. Lesser Goldfinch 12. California Quail 13. Black-billed Magpie 14. Rock Pigeon
Mammals
Rock Squirrel (v)
(v) Voice only *Also elsewhere **Voice only elsewhere
Sneaking down to the bluff this morning—the bluff overlooking the basin, a regular first stop on my daily hike with dog—I surprised a little Sharp-shinned Hawk perched in a stubby scrub oak. The hawk flew back toward the mountain but didn’t top the rise, I saw, so I crept toward it along a deer trail and spied it perched in another scrub oak not too far away.
Had I not been sneaking, the hawk would’ve flow long before I got within twelve or fifteen feet of it. Had I not followed its flight, I wouldn’t have noticed its failure to top the rise. Had I not bothered to creep toward it (despite the distance), I’d’ve never got its photo.
A birder’s instinct, I reckon.
Grandeur Peak Area List Beginning at 7:59 a.m., I hiked a few hundred feet up a mountain.
This morning’s hike was kind of amazing. Not because of new species or rare sightings or any kind of wacky behavioral discovery—just for the sounds of things.
As I’ve surely mentioned here before, I’m primarily an ear-first birder. Started out that way 40 years ago, and still am (thanks to lucky genetics that’ve so far preserved my hearing). On my hike with dog today nearly all the birds on my list got there first because of my ears.
Finch, jay, gnatcatcher, magpie, towhee, hummingbird, chickadee, goldfinch, nuthatch, chippie, tanager, woodpecker—all but Mourning Dove, in fact, I heard before I saw (if in fact I saw them at all).
I also heard a few alternate vocalizations that I’ve learned to attribute to certain species—and two or three bird sounds that I didn’t recognize at all.
Perhaps a bit ironically, for the only time I can remember my camera card download failed. Lost all photos from my hike with dog. (Not that any were particularly frame-worthy.) At least I managed to grab a couple at home—including a photo of a young robin (another bird I heard before I saw).
Grandeur Peak Area List Beginning at 7:59 a.m., I hiked a few hundred feet up a mountain.
