Beech Nut.
Last night, the wind howled and moaned. And the voice of the wind drowned out the pattering of the rain. And the big, leaning oak leaned and swayed but didn’t topple onto my bedroom—thankfully.
Jack's tracks.
This morning, water coursed swiftly down the hill and across the parking lot. I could see not a trace of last week’s ice or snow. Crows flapped about, and an occasional gull flew by. While working, I looked out the windows from time to time to gauge the strength of the rain. Mostly light rain, with an occasional lull. We waited until late in the day to head out toward the hill, Jack and I.
It was raining still, lightly but steadily. I was not surprised to find no other hikers there. As soon as we started walking I heard the thin, wavering calls of a pair of brown creepers somewhere in high in the trees surrounding the parking lot. Also black-capped chickadees.
Coming up the rise by the road, I paused to watch five or six chickadees flitting about in the low, bare vegetation, talking to each other.
Steady, light rain. All the snowfall that had covered the hill yesterday had vanished overnight. Nothing but a bronze, brown, gray, wet landscape. Ascending, Jack and I were both surprised by the mud—our feet sunk deep into the earth where they’d never sunk before. Fact is, I can’t remember ever encountering such a soft trail up there. More than once its extreme mushiness underfoot made me laugh.
Birch.
The drippy overcast hung so low that it might as well have been fog. From the summit, I couldn’t even see the base of the hill. The bay, totally obscured. Rounding Beech Nut, I spotted a solitary mourning dove on the rock wall of the porch; it flew before I’d raised my camera. Then, starting back down, I heard the voice of the resident flicker down the eastern side.
As we continued down, rain dripped from the brim of my hat. It’d already filled our ascending footprints, making little puddles. And then it struck me that ours were the only tracks on the trail today—no one else had preceded us. That made me feel kind of good somehow.
In the distance, crows cawed.
The night remains warm. It’s raining still—but I hear rumors that tomorrow sometime it might turn into snow.
Beech Hill List
Beginning at 3 p.m., I hiked the open trail.
1. Brown creeper (voice)
2. Black-capped chickadee
3. Mourning dove
4. Northern flicker (voice)
5. American crow (voice)
Elsewhere
6. Herring gull
Beech Hill, Rockport, Maine, 13 December 2010.
Tags: American crow, black-capped chickadee, brown creeper, herring gull, mourning dove, northern flicker
