17 February 2025

Drizzly

Wednesday, March 27th, 2013
Northern shrike, Beech Hill, Rockport, Maine, 27 March 2013.

Northern shrike.

Today dawned gray and damp. I’d already heard the rush of car tires on wet roads from bed before the sun came up. I also heard a titmouse out there. And crows.

Pussy willow, Beech Hill, Rockport, Maine, 27 March 2013.

Pussy willow.

Was drippy at the end of the day, also, as Jack and I sidestepped great patches of mud on the open Beech Hill trail. (Jack does this, in fact—deftly avoids bad slop.) Lots of birds there: dove and cardinal singing brightly, voice of a jay, a secretive songbird flitting in the little bare trees that I couldn’t identify. Coming up the slope, I spotted a little small perched at the tip of the little oak tree. Before I could even get a good look I knew it was the shrike. As we got near it, it began to sing.

That’s a rare gift at this latitude: hearing the song of a shrike. I’ve heard it three or four times now, and I like it.

But not as much as I like the spring display of the American woodcock. He’s out there again tonight, in light rain.

Beech Hill List
Beginning at 4:45 p.m., I hiked the open trail.

1. American robin
2. Blue jay (v)
3. Black-capped chickadee** (v)
4. Mourning dove (v)
5. Northern cardinal** (v)
6. American crow*
7. Northern shrike

Elsewhere

8. Tufted titmouse (v)
9. House finch (v)
10. Herring gull
11. Rock pigeon
12. Mallard
13. American woodcock (v)

v = Voice only
*Also elsewhere
**Voice only elsewhere

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Bird Report is a (sometimes intermittent) record of the birds I encounter while hiking, see while driving, or spy outside my window. —Brian Willson



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