8 February 2025

Revving Up

Wednesday, August 23rd, 2023
Sharp-shinned Hawks, Beech Hill Preserve, Rockport, Maine, 23 August 2023.
Sharp-shinned Hawks.

It was a cool one, this morning. I hesitate to say I smelled a whiff of fall, considering autumn’s still a month away, but the weather conditions weren’t the only signs of the changing seasons. A number of migratory birds seemed to be revving up for a journey.

A pair of sharpies, for instance, circling in the cloudless sky, the smaller male occasionally charging at the larger female. Vultures also circled overhead. And in the woods tiny warblers chased and flitted nervously.

“Time doth flit,” wrote Dorothy Parker. It won’t be long, I suppose.

Beech Hill List
Starting at 7:06 a.m. EST (8:06 DST), I hiked all trails.

1. American Goldfinch**
2. Gray Catbird**
3. Eastern Wood-pewee (v)
4. Red-bellied Woodpecker
5. Red-eyed Vireo (v)
6. Purple Finch (v)
7. White-breasted Nuthatch (v)
8. Black-and-white Warbler
9. Black-capped Chickadee
10. Ovenbird (v)
11. American Robin
12. Northern Flicker (v)
13. American Crow*
14. Hairy Woodpecker (v)
15. Downy Woodpecker (v)
16. Eastern Towhee
17. Yellow-bellied Flycatcher
18. Cedar Waxwing
19. Sharp-shinned Hawk
20. Song Sparrow
21. Eastern Phoebe
22. Yellow Warbler (v)
23. Turkey Vulture
24. Common Yellowthroat

Elsewhere

25. Mourning Dove
26. Wild Turkey
27. Rock Pigeon

Mammals

Eastern Chipmunk

(v) Voice only
*Also elsewhere
**Voice only elsewhere

†First-of-year

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Bird Report is a (sometimes intermittent) record of the birds I encounter while hiking, see while driving, or spy outside my window. —Brian Willson



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