Barren slope.
Sunshine came softly through my a-window today. All right (with due respect to Donovan), it really came rather harshly through my window—considering the mounds of snow lying all about. And the reflective properties of masses of flakes frozen water. All that.
Rodent tracks.
But just another gorgeous winter day. Crows flapping around, as usual. Chickadees singing out back. For various uninteresting (errand-related) reasons, Jack and I didn’t embark on our Beech Hill trip until mid-afternoon. We blasted into the parking lot at the same time as yesterday—right about 3:30.
We’d already followed the well-defined snowshoe track around through the first grove of trees when I heard something. I wasn’t even sure it was a bird. A repeated, buzzy squawk coming from across the road, some distance away. We waited. I heard it again. I convinced Jack to turn around and we retraced our steps to the parking lot and back down toward the road. There it was again—but also a chirp or two, some musical squawks, a note, a buzz. I began to wonder if I was listening a wayward starling or something.
Then I saw a small bird perched near the tip of a bare-limbed hardwood through the trees across the road. Trained my binoculars on it. From the way it sat, the way its tail jutted straight out, I thought—whoa, that’s a shrike. And it occurred to me that I’d never heard a shrike’s call before. I seemed to remember reading it made a peculiar, jumbled series of sounds. It was a shrike, I was convinced of it. I attempted a distant photo.
While fixated on the shrike, I also heard a nuthatch and a chickadee. And then I began to wonder if the bird I’d dubbed a robin yesterday might’ve really been this shrike. That gave me something of a pause.
Rodent tracks.
We turned around and started up the hill.
A lovely, blue-sky day. But the most notable part of today’s hike, to me, were the many tiny rodent tracks winding around on otherwise unblemished surfaces the snow. One track, in fact, showed that the rodent—a meadow vole, I assume—pattered around and, returning, actually dove under the snow, leaving a little mound in its wake. It must be challenging, being a meadow vole in winter. Owls, shrikes. But these little guys seemed to be gamers.
The bay looked particularly lovely from the summit. To the northeast, I admired the snowly slopes of the peaks of Mount Desert Island. A couple of cross-country skiers had been up there today. One, in fact, had left the trail and skied around the southern hillside. I noted from their tracks a few leashless dogs, as well. And I picked up a pile of dog poop in the trail that was not Jack’s. Oh, well.
Rodent tracks.
Descending, I heard the caws of a crow. Then, approaching the road again, I heard the distinctive squee! of a robin. Nice. So perhaps I wasn’t wrong yesterday, after all. Perhaps, in fact, I’d heard both shrike and robin yesterday—only I didn’t recognize the shrike.
After returning home, going online, and listening to recordings of the call of a northern shrike, I now have no doubt that’s what I saw and heard today. A first-of-year bird for me.
Elsewhere? Well, I looked for the red-shouldered hawk around Clam Cove. Didn’t see it, though. Saw herring gulls and pigeons perched atop the old Van Baalen’s building in Rockland. Still, not so bad for a deep-winter birding day. Not so bad at all.
Beech Hill List
Beginning at 3:30 p.m., I hiked the open trail.
1. Northern shrike
2. White-breasted nuthatch (voice)
3. Black-capped chickadee (voice)
4. American crow (voice)
5. American robin (voice)
Elsewhere
6. Herring gull
7. Rock pigeon
Mount Desert.
Tags: American crow, American robin, black-capped chickadee, herring gull, northern shrike, rock pigeon, white-breasted nuthatch
