Cedar waxwings.
It seemed cool enough, first thing. Overcast and lightly foggy, with a bit of movement in the air. Dog and I headed out hopefully, as usual, to our rendezvous with a familiar wooded hillside.
Deer flies were still swarming, as they’d been for maybe a week. We set off at a brisk pace, as we typically do.
American robin.
After a couple hundred paces, despite the apparent coolness, I was sweating, and Jack was panting, and the hum of the swarming deer flies ascended with us. Only twice has a deer fly bitten me up there—oddly, both times on my back—but I decided to try an experiment. As I walked I whipped my right arm back over my head, palm facing rearward, and whack! I must’ve hit four or five flies. So I tweaked the experiment a little by putting a hand-grab at the end. Sure enough, I managed to grab probably twenty deer flies during our time on the wooded trails. Then I’d give a little squeeze and toss ’em down.
Heck, I didn’t have many birds to distract me. The usual woodland species were calling from along the trail, but few made a visual appearance. The dimness of the day prevented decent photography anyway—though I did get a couple interesting silhouettes. Noteworthy was a good-sized family of flickers at the summit, dipping in and out of the spruce grove up there. Several other species have roving families about this time of year, too: chickadee, savannah sparrow, waxwing, jay. In fact, a particularly noisy scene occurred on the other side of the hill, at the parking lot below the open trail, where a whole family of blue jays flitted about in a grove of trees, running through their outlandish vocal repertoire. In fact, one of the jays sat for a while and pointedly scolded me for eavesdropping on their loud-but-inscrutable domestic activities.
Six warblers, five sparrows, three thrushes, three flycatchers—the flycatchers seemingly emerging from a mid-year silence. Ovenbirds are growing quieter, meantime. The first I heard was a solitary bird singing on our return trip down the lower wooded trail.
We’ve reached a sort of doldrums. More humidity, more deer flies. But subtle change is afoot if you know what to look for.
(Later: driving along Rockville Street near the Beech Hill parking lot, I happened upon a broad-winged hawk rising, its striped tail fanned, after having apparently just caught a mouse or vole.)
Blue jay.
Beech Hill List
Beginning at 7:15 a.m., I walked all trails.
1. Red-eyed vireo (voice)
2. Eastern towhee
3. American crow
4. Chestnut-sided warbler (voice)
5. American goldfinch (voice)
6. Gray catbird (voice)
7. Black-capped chickadee (voice)
8. Veery
9. Common yellowthroat
10. Northern flicker
11. Cedar waxwing
12. Alder flycatcher (voice)
13. Song sparrow
14. Black-and-white warbler (voice)
15. Eastern phoebe
16. Savannah sparrow
17. Field sparrow (voice)
18. Mourning dove
19. Yellow warbler (voice)
20. White-throated sparrow (voice)
21. Chipping sparrow (voice)
22. Blue jay
23. Purple finch (voice)
24. Northern cardinal (voice)
25. American robin
26. Hermit thrush (voice)
27. Hairy woodpecker (voice)
28. Ovenbird (voice)
29. Eastern wood-pewee (voice)
30. Black-throated green warbler (voice)
31. White-breasted nuthatch (voice)
Elsewhere
32. Herring gull
33. House finch
34. Broad-winged hawk
American crow.
Tags: alder flycatcher, American crow, American goldfinch, American robin, black-and-white warbler, black-capped chickadee, black-throated green warbler, blue jay, Cedar waxwing, chestnut-sided warbler, chipping sparrow, eastern phoebe, eastern towhee, eastern wood-pewee, field sparrow, gray catbird, hairy woodpecker, hermit thrush, herring gull, house finch, mourning dove, northern cardinal, northern flicker, ovenbird, purple finch, red-eyed vireo, savannah sparrow, song sparrow, tufted titmouse, veery, white-breasted nuthatch, white-throated sparrow, yellow warbler
