Flow.
I might have to modify my low birding expectations on rainy days.
May Day brought rain pretty much all day, and I found myself thinking about ethics—personal ethics, business ethics. Partly because of the evidence of people ignoring the Beech Hill rules. And partly because of a podcast I listened to today that revealed just how easy it is for a seemingly innocuous lie to land you in federal prison. And partly because of an NPR feature I’d just heard on the apparent willingness of groups, teams, indeed great masses of businesspeople to willingly break the law when it might help a boss or friend avoid some legal inconvenience. And partly on account of I’d just been thinking of how, in the corporate world, the whole idea seems to be to “get ahead” of everybody else—even if getting ahead means manipulations, cutting in line, and cheating. The idea being, whoever dies with the most money wins. Which is, of course, ridiculous.
Wild strawberry.
But then I heard a phoebe. I’d stopped with Jack on the rainy Beech Hill trail about this point in my ruminations, and the note of a phoebe brought me to. I saw the bird, but it flew before I could get a photo. I resolved not to think so much, and we continued up the trail.
And then I heard a towhee. We stopped again, and I spotted the towhee, too, flitting in the low tangly trailside brush. I had my (new) camera at the ready this time (albeit with some trepidation about it getting rained on), but the bird never perched in the open. Several towhee calls later, we rounded a turn and startled a little gang of white-throated sparrows. Six or seven of them, in fact. They, too, flitted into dense cover and foiled my photographic aspirations.
Fog and drizzle at the summit, but no birds that I could see. We headed back down the lower trail a ways then stopped so Jack could pee. Standing there in the woods, I realized that just that—standing there in the woods—is often a good way to spot a bird. I heard crows in the distance but not a peep from anything else. No motion except from newly sprouted green leaves jarred by falling water. And the sudden flight of a large brown bird. A Cooper’s hawk, I could tell right away, since the hawk had apparently been perching not twenty feet away and flew low through the trees in a semi-circle around us before vanishing in an evergreen thicket. No wonder it was so quiet.
And just as I had that thought, I heard a single loud cluck! and turned to see a turkey neck jutting up from behind a low rise just beyond where the hawk had flown. We crept closer, but the turkey simply disappeared (or seemed to). A hen with a nest, perhaps?
Beech Nut.
We didn’t bother the turkey hen. And I didn’t bother to feel bad about going home without bird photos. For a rainy day, in an unethical world, it turned out not too bad.
Beech Hill List
Beginning at 5 p.m., I hiked the wooded trails.
1. Herring gull* (v)
2. American crow* (v)
3. Black-capped chickadee (v)
4. Eastern phoebe
5. Eastern towhee
6. White-throated sparrow
7. American robin*
8. Cooper’s hawk**
9. Wild turkey
Elsewhere
10. House sparrow
11. European starling
12. Osprey
13. Song sparrow
14. Tufted titmouse
v = Voice only
*Also elsewhere
**First-of-year bird
Tags: American crow, American robin, black-capped chickadee, cooper's hawk, eastern phoebe, eastern towhee, European starling, herring gull, house sparrow, osprey, song sparrow, tufted titmouse, white-throated sparrow, wild turkey
