This morning’s was a grand hike. Coolish in the shade, a cloud-dappled blue sky, warmish in the sun, plenty of interesting birds to listen to and look at.

Saw finches, corvids, wren, sparrow, doves, towhee, hawk. Heard gnatcatcher and flicker. But the birds that warmed my heart up on the bluff were a little bevy of chickadees. The kind that’s the state bird of my old home-state of Maine. The kind that have a every-so-slightly different accent here—but behave exactly like the bird I know and live. The kind that occasionally oblige me with a nice photo.

Here’s to the Black-capped Chickadee.

Grandeur Peak Area List
At 7:18 a.m. (8:18 MDT), I hiked a few hundred feet up a mountain.

1. Northern Flicker (v)
2. Woodhouse’s Scrub-jay**
3. Rock Wren
4. House Finch**
5. Black-capped Chickadee
6. Lesser Goldfinch
7. Eurasian Collared-dove
8. Rock Pigeon*
9. Spotted Towhee
10. Black-billed Magpie*
11. Brewer’s Sparrow
12. Cooper’s Hawk
13. Blue-gray Gnatcatcher (v)

(v) Voice only
*Also elsewhere
**Voice only elsewhere