Yellow-rumped warbler.
The prognosticators had been unanimous, pretty much: there was gonna be a blow. Rain, wind, storm. It’d arrive sometime after midnight and continue well into the day. And, sure enough, sometime in the wee hours I awoke to the sound of a keening wind and spattering rain. The wind seemed steady to me in my cocoon of near-sleep. All I could think of was the gigantic oak tree leaning precariously over my bedroom—but what, really, could I do but fall back asleep again?
New-fallen leaves.
When I awoke for good, the wind was wailing and the rain was pelting down. I must confess to being pleasantly surprised that the power hadn’t blinked off. Out the kitchen window, two tall maples were dancing frenetically—swaying and bowing—in gusts that must’ve been reaching fifty miles an hour. Water coursed down the near margin of Route 1 out front. Littering the deck out back were twigs and branches sporting plenty of still-green leaves.
The only signs of birds I detected were the frantic, wind-blown caws of crows.
By mid-afternoon things had settled down some. The heavy rain had moved away, though water still ran and flowed. Jack and I headed to Beech Hill shortly after 5 p.m.
Gray, breezy, no sign of birds. We walked briskly up the trail for a couple hundred yards before finally hearing the chip! of a yell0w-rumped warbler. At least three of them were flitting around in the trailside. Gray skies dimmed things, muted the fall colors. Down the slope, it appeared many leaves had been flung loose across the landscape. Many of the red leaves seemed missing, oddly. I heard the jeers of jays.
At the summit, the world looked wet and wild. Despite the moving air, things seemed somehow to have paused. A gigantic tanker of some kind was heading southbound this side of Vinalhaven.
I heard crows. I heard a song sparrow.
Returning down the slope, more ‘rumps. More jays’ voices. Just as we were about to reach the parking lot again and I was thinking that it’d been a really long time since I hadn’t listed a chickadee, the alarm call of a black-capped burst from a bush not six feet away.
All in all, an adventurous day—one that even included lightning and thunder at one point.
What a lovely, living, breathing, animated world we live in.
Beech Nut.
Beech Hill List
Beginning at 5:15 p.m., I hiked the open trail.
1. Yellow-rumped warbler
2. Blue jay (voice)
3. American crow (voice)
4. Song sparrow (voice)
5. Black-capped chickadee (voice)
Elsewhere
6. Herring gull
Tags: American crow, black-capped chickadee, blue jay, herring gull, song sparrow, yellow-rumped warbler
