Beech Nut.
I’ve got a thing about crows. I doubt I am alone. In fact, I’d be willing to wager that humans have been obsessed with crows for millennia. Crows and ravens. Big black smart birds that seem to know what we’re thinking.
Crow prints.
On our Beech Hill hike this afternoon, Jack and I met a number of crows. There were two groups of them, and a pair. Perhaps they all belonged to the same club—a group of five or six down the partly open southern slope flapped away as we’d ascended about half way. I heard the second group, down the eastern slope, before I spotted the lookout’s head eyeing us over a snowdrift. As I was angling for a photo, the lookout let out a caw, and the bunch of them flew lazily away.
Then, nearing the summit, I spied a solitary crow on Beech Nut’s sod roof. It cawed a couple times and flew into the birches. As we approached, it called again, and it and another bird flapped off to the northwest—in the opposite direction from where the other birds had gone.
The footprints of crows crisscrossed the snow around the hut.
I don’t know what any of this means. I just know I’ve got a thing about crows.
Beech Hill List
Beginning at 4:30 p.m., I hiked the open trail.
1. American crow*
2. Black-capped chickadee**
3. Tufted titmouse (v)
Elsewhere
4. Pileated woodpecker (v)
5. Northern cardinal (v)
6. Herring gull
7. House finch
v = Voice only
*Also elsewhere
**Voice only elsewhere
Tags: American crow, black-capped chickadee, herring gull, house finch, northern cardinal, pileated woodpecker, tufted titmouse
