Today would’ve been a rather unremarkable, chilly, clear, pleasant hike with Captain Jack, but then I heard the voice of a Townsend’s Solitaire.
It wasn’t the first time I’ve heard a solitaire’s repeated one-note territorial call lately—a bird’s been calling down in the neighborhood for a month or more—but it was only the second I’d heard from up in the juniper barrens. The first (yesterday) sounded near enough to see, but I couldn’t find it. This morning’s bird was rather distant, down over the rise toward town from where we walked, but nowhere near as far away as the neighborhood bird. Just as I wondered aloud if it might be perched in a particular juniper that we pass daily down in that direction, it stopped calling.
I pretty much gave up at that point, but when we topped the rise and I could see the juniper, I couldn’t help training my binocs on the tree—and there it was.
It’s hard to describe how thrilled I felt at my soothsaying abilities. Then, as I began to take faraway photos of the bird, it flew. Straight in our direction it flew, only to perched atop a leafless tree quite a bit nearer. Again I trained my camera on the solitaire, and again it flew—to a treetop even nearer us. I focused again, and it flew again.
That’s when I took the photo you see here.
Grandeur Peak Area List
At 09:08 MST, I hiked a few hundred feet up a mountain.
1. House Finch** (v)
2. Black-billed Magpie* (v)
3. Black-capped Chickadee
4. Rock Pigeon*
5. European Starling
6. Woodhouse’s Scrub-jay (v)
7. Townsend’s Solitaire
8. Pine Siskin (v)
Mammals
Mule Deer
Red Squirrel
(v) Voice only
*Also elsewhere
**Voice only elsewhere
Tags: black-billed magpie, black-capped chickadee, European starling, house finch, mule deer, pine siskin, red squirrel, rock pigeon, Townsend’s solitaire, Woodhouse’s scrub jay
