Island.
The pattering sound of icy precipitation against my window this early morning convinced me to sleep in. It’s the day after Thanksgiving, after all. Black Friday, so called. I didn’t plan to go anywhere special—a couple brief errands, a hike up Beech Hill.
Smoke.
The icy precip soon became plain—if cold—rain. Traffic was heavy out there, I noticed from the continual rush of car tires against the pavement of Route 1. By early afternoon, though, the rain had let up. And by mid-afternoon, I thought I noticed a patch or two of blue in the dark-and-light gray sky. We bundled up, Jack and I, and set out.
A solitary vehicle greeted us in the parking lot. The bare trees dripped. A light wind had risen. I heard the laughter of a pileated woodpecker coming from somewhere to the south of us.
Then, as we ascended, I beheld a fascinating landscape: low, very low clouds veiling the inland hills, but a great patch of blue opening directly above Beech Nut. Off toward the ridge and near Chickawaukie Lake, people were burning brush in at least two piles, and the white smoke roiled and curled in the westerly breeze, mingling with the mist and fog. Off in the bay, the islands—what I could see of them beneath the low-hanging cloud-cover—were bathed in sunlight. I’d never quite seen anything like it.
Chickawaukie Lake.
Jays hollered down the southern slope. And I heard the cry of a flicker.
We met little Lucy in her blaze-orange kerchief, being walked down the hill by her mom. The temperature as we circled Beech Nut couldn’t have been very much above freezing, my hands and fingers told me. The islands floated brightly—incongruously—in the bay.
I thought I might hear crows or chickadees, but not on the hill today. However, I did back home, up the hill. Elsewhere, I heard a cardinal and saw a mourning dove, herring and ring-billed gulls, and a small flock of about a half-dozen wild turkeys crossing busy Route 1, interrupting traffic. The turkeys crossed fast, their necks jutting out and down, and hurried up the wooded driveway of a commercial building. We motorists watched them go as we accelerated up to speed.
Tonight is another clear one. The damp back deck has gone slippery, and Orion is rising.
Beech Hill List
Beginning at 2:45 p.m., I hiked the open trail.
1. Pileated woodpecker (voice)
2. Blue jay (voice)
3. Northern flicker (voice)
Elsewhere
4. American crow
5. Black-capped chickadee
6. Herring gull
7. Northern cardinal
8. Mourning dove
9. Wild turkey
10. Ring-billed gull
Two islands.
Tags: American crow, black-capped chickadee, blue jay, herring gull, mourning dove, northern cardinal, northern flicker, pileated woodpecker, ring-billed gull, wild turkey
