Yellow-rumped warbler.
There sure are a lot of Yellow-rumped Warblers on this planet I call home. I witness clouds of them every autumn out on Monhegan Island, I see gobs of them inshore each spring. I know their dry chip! the best of all the warblers’—and can recognize their loose little musical trills. I’ve seen one in deep winter, after an ice storm, perched on a crystal twig, working away at a glazed bayberry.
Bayberries.
The bayberries, of course, are the reason they love Beech Hill almost as much as I do. Myrtles for the Myrtle Warblers (as the eastern subspecies is also known). They’re among the few critters that find it easy to digest the waxy berries—perhaps that’s one reason their populations are so large. Or maybe just that they’re a hardy little omnivore, happy to dine on bugs or fruits or whatever. I watched one choke down a humongous caterpillar once. That bird must’ve been full for weeks.
I find bayberries handsome in their dormant state, as now. There aren’t as many as there used to be: the rumps have ravaged the trailside bushes.
But on a gray day like today—or on any day before spring really busts out—I’ll hear their familiar little chip notes as they wing their way to great swaths of Canada in their annual nesting season high-adventure.
Beech Hill List
Beginning at 4:30 p.m., I hiked the open trail.
1. Black-capped Chickadee** (v)
2. American Crow*
3. American Goldfinch (v)
4. Common Raven
5. Northern Cardinal**
6. Yellow-rumped Warbler
7. Northern Flicker (v)
8. Song Sparrow (v)
9. Tufted Titmouse (v)
10. Eastern Towhee (v)
11. American Robin (v)
12. Eastern Phoebe
13. Purple Finch (v)
14. Chipping Sparrow (v)
15. Red-breasted Nuthatch (v)
Elsewhere
16. Herring Gull
17. Turkey Vulture
18. Common Grackle
19. White-breasted Nuthatch (v)
v = Voice only
*Also elsewhere
**Voice only elsewhere
Tags: American crow, American goldfinch, American robin, black-capped chickadee, chipping sparrow, common raven, eastern phoebe, eastern towhee, northern cardinal, northern flicker, purple finch, red-breasted nuthatch, song sparrow, tufted titmouse, yellow-rumped warbler
