Black-and-white warbler.
Looks like it’s gonna be another rainy May. The brief appearance of the sun late yesterday lasted about fifteen minutes—and that’s been its only appearance all month. Today brought rain and fog. I was happy to find it only misting by the time Jack and I began our hike up the drippy wooded Beech Hill trail.
Trout lily.
Remembering our last soggy hike and how my low expectations proved mistaken, and reflecting also on a report from a Vermont birder friend that a flood of warblers had arrived in that state, I actually had hopes of seeing something new and exciting, rain or no rain. When we’d gone a few hundred yards without a single sighting (or sounding), though, my hope began to fade. At last a crow flew through the fog above us, cawing. Then I heard a robin. Then the usual gulls over at the little cow farm. Their voices were faint, though, considering all the water vapor in the air and the noisily dripping trees.
As we neared the summit, I heard towhees. Lots of them. Calling, singing. I got a fix on one across a foggy field, but it flew before I could get its portrait—flew straight toward us and lit in a tangle of brush nearby. Too tangly for photos.
We didn’t dawdle at the summit and headed down the muddy lower trail at a brisk pace. By then I figured I’d seen what I would see. And then, as we passed into a patch of tall trees, I heard a chickadee. We stopped. And amid the sound of dripping water, I heard the faint notes of a brown creeper. I scanned the trunks and spotted the bird—or thought I had, until I’d raised my camera and saw that it was a black-and-white warbler. First warbler of the year.
It didn’t sing, didn’t even chip. It just poked around in the bark of a long trunk, as black-and-whites will do. I did then see the creeper. Also the chickadee. And I got to thinking that it should be a surprise to find these three species hanging out in one place on a rainy day. Their browsing behavior is similar, after all: brown creepers and black-and-white warblers both like to poke about in the bark, and while the dining behavior of chickadees is more flexible, they often do this, too. A minor realization, perhaps, but still it gave me just a hint of an inner smile.
High-bush blueberries..
And then we slogged down the rest of the way. And I wiped Jack’s feet with the towel I keep in the pickup. And we drove home through the drizzly rain.
And a couple hours later, when I took dog out to pee in the mist, I heard the peent! of a woodcock.
Beech Hill List
Beginning at 4:45 p.m., I hiked the wooded trails.
1. American crow*
2. American robin* (v)
3. Herring gull* (v)
4. Mourning dove
5. Eastern towhee
6. Song sparrow (v)
7. Black-capped chickadee*
8. Brown creeper
9. Black-and-white warbler**
10. American goldfinch
Elsewhere
11. House finch (v)
12. House sparrow (v)
13. American woodcock (v)
v = Voice only
*Also elsewhere
** First-of-year bird
Black-and-white warbler.
Tags: American crow, American goldfinch, American robin, American woodcock, black-and-white warbler, black-capped chickadee, brown creeper, eastern towhee, herring gull, house finch, house sparrow, mourning dove, song sparrow
