Pileated woodpecker.
When I took Jack out for a final pee last night, a lot of snow was coming down. Big, fluffy flakes, zillions of them, and already about six new inches on the ground. I went to sleep wondering how close to the forecast five- to eight-inch overnight snowfall we’d end up with.
Indian Island Light (from Beech Hill).
When I awoke this morning, I saw that we ended up with about a foot and a half.
Nippy, in the twenties (F). Not a lot of wind, but many vocal crows out there. Also chickadees. Gulls overhead. Every surface was covered with snow. So much snow—albeit light and fluffy—that it took me at least an hour to shovel it all. (And it took the plow guy until nearly noon to clear the parking lot.) Thirty miles away, they got six inches. This was apparently a local phenomenon.
As my Beech Hill hike with Jack would attest. If anything, there was more snow on the ground up there. But the sky had cleared, and the sun was bright, and I managed to plow my pickup into the driveway to the parking lot far enough that nobody would hit it from the road. Donned my snowshoes, but the snow on the ground was so light and ephemeral that each step broke clear through to the earlier big snow (how long ago did it fall? four or five days?), so basically I slogged up the hill through a snowfall up to my knees. Jack was game at first, bounding along ahead of me for about a hundred yards or so, but they he decided he’d hang back and follow the trail I blazed. Smart dog.
And it was a slog. Didn’t feel cold at all, what with all the sweat and rapid pulse and pausing every hundred paces or so to catch my breath. There were birds about. Chickadees. Vocal flickers. Crows in the distance. I even heard the chip note of a yell0w-rumped warbler on our way back down.
Captain Jack.
Then, back at the parking lot, I heard a sound like someone knocking on a door. I knew what that was: a pileated woodpecker. Sure enough I saw, right near the kiosk, hammering on the trunk of an old dead pine, a handsome male pileated. It saw me, too, and/or Jack, and its crest raised in alarm—and I noticed for the first time that a PIWOÆs crest actually forms twin mohawks. Cool.
Tonight there’s a big moon. A lot of snow. And not even winter yet.
Beech Hill List
Beginning at 1:30 p.m., I hiked the open trail.
1. Black-capped chickadee**
2. Northern flicker (v)
3. American crow* (v)
4. Yellow-rumped warbler (v)
5. Pileated woodpecker
Elsewhere
6. Herring gull
7. Mourning dove
8. Ring-billed gull
9. Rock pigeon
v = Voice only
*Also elsewhere
**Voice only elsewhere
Tags: American crow, black-capped chickadee, herring gull, mourning dove, northern flicker, pileated woodpecker, ring-billed gull, rock pigeon, yellow-rumped warbler
