Sundown.
I rose rather early along with the blazing sun. Despite the abundance of it, though, the sun didn’t warm things much: the temperature remained in the single digits (F) until about mid-morning. Last night’s snow lay in a thin, crusty layer. A crow or two flapped by.
The open trail.
When I took Jack out, I heard what I thought at first were the resident house sparrows—but then I listened more closely and realized it was a house finch I was hearing. For we also have resident house finches around here. (One even built a nest in my back eaves one recent spring.) I stood listening for a while in the crisp clear cold. No chickadees or titmice or woodpeckers, just a lively, vocal finch.
The sun shone for a few hours, then clouds moved over for a while. But then the clouds began to break up and, in a quick trip to town, I saw a rainbow-colored parhelion—a small section of sundog—hanging off to the east of the sun.
Another busy day, but not too busy to drag myself away in late afternoon with Jack. We headed as usual to Beech Hill, where a solitary car sat parked along the road. And we had to brake for a couple ladies in snowshoes as we pulled into the parking lot. I thought I wouldn’t need mine—and I didn’t, but it might’ve made things easier had I not neglected to consider last night’s inch or two of soft, drifty snow.
Canine tracks.
We passed the ladies—who stepped thoughtfully aside—and marched up the first little rise, each of us slipping occasionally. Just before the turn at the gate, I heard a chickadee calling animatedly from a tree directly above the trail. I spotted the little guy and thought about trying for a photo, but it was perched in a shady hollow, and we had two ladies on our heels.
Up the slope with the wind at our backs. Not a little wind, and temperatures hung in the lower-20s—I was happy to have gloves. The sky had cleared again, aside from some high, thin clouds and the usual herd of elephants away over the bay. At one point I noticed canine tracks headed off down an otherwise pristine, snow-covered blueberry barren. A coyote, I figure.
A solitary snowshoer had been up there before us; two were following. We circled Beech Nut and headed back down. Jack greeted the ladies again, and we hurried into the wind. Just as we were about to reach the parking lot, I heard something and stopped. Sure enough, the faint, high call of a brown creeper curling up the trunk of a tree somewhere nearby.
The photoperiod lengthens. The sun remained above the horizon despite the later hour. A sign that spring is now only a half-season away.
Beech Hill List
Beginning at 4 p.m., I hiked the open trail.
1. Black-capped chickadee
2. Brown creeper (voice)
Elsewhere
3. American crow
4. House finch
5. Herring gull
6. Ring-billed gull
Nearing the summit.
Tags: American crow, black-capped chickadee, brown creeper, herring gull, house finch, ring-billed gull
