Song sparrow.
Temperatures in the 20s (F) when first I looked. Mighty sunny, though.
Soon the thermometer showed 30-something degrees. A bit of wind, but not a lot of clouds. Calling birds included cardinal, titmouse, chickadee, crow. Dog and I took off for Beech Hill about midday—this time deciding to climb the wooded trail. (I’d been avoiding this for a week or so, based entirely on the number of ticks we got last time.)
Buds.
The trail was sodden, muddy, slippery. I should’ve anticipated this, what with yesterday’s melted snow. Ice hung in the low, wet spots—creating natural art, as it usually does. We met no one else on the trail. Heard little gangs of chickadees on the lower trail and, toward the top, the voices of sparrows.
In particular, song sparrows. Three were poking around in the tangles on either side of the upper trail. Only one was singing, and this one seemed braver—even exposing himself on the trail itself not far ahead of a human and dog. It was nice to get a half-way decent photo of a small passerine for a change. And to discover, soon after, that because of the ascending sun, my frigid fingers had seemingly thawed.
In afternoon, a pair of mallards flew over. In evening, I saw starlings and robins near the roads I drove. And after dark, as the moon rose, I found myself passing along the southern edge of Beech Hill. I looked at the big dark loaf of hill to the left of me, and I thought of bobcats and snowshoe hares and barred owls, and coons and skunks and sleeping song sparrows—even a mountain lion, perhaps.
(Nature at nighttime is all ears and imagination.)
Migration note: broad-winged hawks have reportedly just crossed the Rio Grande en masse and are headed up our way.
Today’s List
Northern cardinal
Tufted titmouse
American crow
Black-capped chickadee
House finch
Song sparrow
Downy woodpecker
American goldfinch
Herring gull
Ring-billed gull
Mallard
European starling
American robin
Oak leaf.
Tags: American crow, American goldfinch, American robin, downy woodpecker, European starling, herring gull, house finch, mallard, northern cardinal, ring-billed gull, song sparrow, tufted titmouse
