Get off my goddamned lawn.—Walt Kowalski in Gran Torino

Although I’m a hard-core road cyclist, I’m not a fan of mountain biking. Oh, I can imagine it being a thrill—careening down the fickle curves and slopes of a shady wooded trail, bounding over rocks, missing trees by inches, coming into a sharp curve too fast and wiping out into a brushy, leafy hollow, your elbow flattening an ovenbird’s nest.

“Dude! Did you see that?

In fact, I’ve got good friends who enjoy mountain biking. I can imagine it being great fun.

So maybe it’s just proof I’m an ornery old man when I got all bent out of shape this morning to see clear evidence that a pair of mountain bikers had ridden up the open Beech Hill trail sometime yesterday and then sped full-tilt down the lower wooded trail. A few places got torn up pretty good—although of course they’ll heal. No permanent damage. No big deal.

Except that it’s against the (posted) rules. And that I’d hate to be coming up that narrow trail when a mountain biker happened to be speeding down it. It makes me wish no one had cut away the berry brambles on either side of those trails—would’ve made it a lot less thrilling.

But besides my inner old man rant against mountain biking, today’s hike was a good one. A great one, in fact, species-wise. I listed thirty-nine bird species, total. (And that didn’t include white-throated sparrow, tufted titmouse, or rose-breasted grosbeak—all pretty common lately but missing today.) Noteworthy species on the list: eastern bluebird, black-billed cuckoo, Blackburnian warbler, and common raven. Also heard a scarlet tanager for the second straight day.

Coming over the summit I happened to notice, out in Penobscot Bay, the gigantic drill ship Stena Forth getting towed away from Rockland Harbor following its thruster repairs. On our return not long after, the ship was rounding Owls Head and sailing away.

Meantime, I have one confession to make: the past few days I’ve been referring to a house finch singing from the spruce grove at the summit of Beech Hill. My friend Kristen—a far more experience birder than I—saw my photo yesterday and at once recognized it as a purple finch, not a house finch. I stand corrected (and not a little embarrassed). I thought sure I could tell the difference between these birds by voice; clearly, I’m wrong. I’ve fixed the listings for these past few days.

Beech Hill List
Beginning at 7:30 a.m., I walked all trails.

1. Eastern phoebe
2. Red-eyed vireo
3. Cedar waxwing
4. Common yellowthroat
5. White-breasted nuthatch
6. American robin
7. Eastern towhee
8. Chestnut-sided warbler
9. Black-capped chickadee
10. Veery
11. American crow
12. Ovenbird
13. Gray catbird
14. American goldfinch
15. Yellow warbler
16. Northern flicker
17. Scarlet tanager
18. Alder flycatcher
19. Mourning dove
20. Black-and-white warbler
21. Common raven
22. Song sparrow
23. Tree swallow
24. Purple finch
25. Savannah sparrow
26. Field sparrow
27. Herring gull
28. Hermit thrush
29. Black-billed cuckoo
30. Wood thrush
31. Chipping sparrow
32. American redstart
33. Eastern bluebird
34. Black-throated green warbler
35. Hairy woodpecker
36. Blackburnian warbler
37. Black-throated blue warbler
38. Pileated woodpecker
39. Eastern wood-pewee

Elsewhere

40. House sparrow
41. Broad-winged hawk
42. Northern parula
43. Common grackle

Tags: alder flycatcher, American crow, American goldfinch, American redstart, American robin, black-and-white warbler, black-billed cuckoo, black-capped chickadee, black-throated blue warbler, black-throated green warbler, blackburnian warbler, Cedar waxwing, chestnut-sided warbler, chipping sparrow, common raven, common yellowthroat, eastern phoebe, eastern towhee, eastern wood-pewee, field sparrow, gray catbird, hairy woodpecker, hermit thrush, herring gull, mourning dove, northern flicker, ovenbird, pileated woodpecker, purple finch, red-eyed vireo, savannah sparrow, scarlet tanager, song sparrow, tree swallow, veery, white-breasted nuthatch, wood thrush, yellow warbler

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 27th, 2010 at 9:17 pm and is filed under Lists, Observations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.