Cedar waxwing.
We’ve all got a little hunter in us. It’s in our DNA. We like to go out looking for stuff. And if that stuff happens to present a moving target, things get even more interesting.
Ripening.
In my younger, more foolish years, I managed to stalk and kill some prey—lizards, fish, even a bird or two—but then I grew up and, today, wouldn’t dream of ending the life of any living thing (other than a few ticks or mosquitoes or weeds). Heck, I’ve been a vegetarian for twenty years. But that hasn’t dampened my stalking gene.
When it comes right down to it, birding is just that: stalking. You see motion in the trees or hear an unfamiliar call, and that ancestral urge kicks in. As it did for me, today, at Beech Hill.
It happened yesterday, too, to a lesser degree, when Jack and I headed off-trail in pursuit of a singing hermit thrush. An unsuccessful hunt, but oh, well. Today—a fairly rainy, foggy one, with no fast bike ride for a change—my hike with dog began without much promise. I heard a catbird, the usual vireos, an ovenbird, a veery. I heard quite a few birds, in fact, but the in whole hike up I got a good look only at a single waxwing, and had a fleeing robin sighting. And at the summit, where I had a great view of the thick, white bank of fog cloaking the whole of the bay, I didn’t see or hear a single bird. No song sparrow, no Savannah sparrow, no yellowthroat, no towhee.
But returning down the lower wooded trail, I heard again—as I did two days ago—the unmistakable call of a tanager. Two days ago, I let it go and we didn’t bother looking for the bird. Well, today, I had an urge to stalk.
The wooded trail.
We headed off the trail. Jack was game. The bird sounded close. I know from experience that it would be perched high in the canopy and likely wouldn’t move much, so we snuck slowly down maybe fifty or sixty yards, taking care not to make much noise, angling here and there for the route of least resistance, and at we last stood just beneath the tree it was calling from. Jack stood by patiently for five or ten minutes as I waited, scanning the treetops. The bird was right there, but I couldn’t even get a glimpse of red amid the leaves. Finally, we turned and headed back up to the trail.
One aspect of stalking that you don’t dwell on are the peripheral annoyances. Buzzing deerflies, biting mosquitos. A massive spider web right in your face. Had I seen the tanager—or, better yet, photographed it—I wouldn’t even have remembered that stuff. But I didn’t. So I do.
Worse, I’d only managed a single photo of any bird. (Run-of-the-mill waxwing.) And it was damp and humid up there all of a sudden. And as we returned, the deer flies persisted. (A single deer fly will follow you for a quarter of a mile, I bet.) But I did hear a hermit thrush. And a pewee. Except that made my daily total seventeen birds—a prime number.
But then I heard the distant song of a black-throated green warbler. Turned out to be a successful hike, after all.
Beech Hill List
Beginning at 5 p.m., I hiked the wooded trails.
1. Gray catbird (v)
2. Red-eyed vireo (v)
3. Ovenbird (v)
4. Veery (v)
5. Hairy woodpecker (v)
6. Cedar waxwing
7. American goldfinch* (v)
8. Chestnut-sided warbler (v)
9. Eastern towhee (v)
10. Alder flycatcher (v)
11. Black-capped chickadee* (v)
12. American crow* (v)
13. American robin*
14. Common yellowthroat (v)
15. Scarlet tanager (v)
16. Hermit thrush (v)
17. Eastern wood-pewee (v)
18. Black-throated green warbler (v)
Elsewhere
19. Herring gull
20. House sparrow (v)
21. Northern cardinal (v)
Tags: alder flycatcher, American crow, American goldfinch, American robin, black-capped chickadee, black-throated green warbler, Cedar waxwing, chestnut-sided warbler, common yellowthroat, eastern towhee, eastern wood-pewee, gray catbird, hairy woodpecker, hermit thrush, herring gull, house sparrow, northern cardinal, ovenbird, red-eyed vireo, scarlet tanager, veery
