Beech Nut.
Another sunny, cold one. Stepped out with dog and right away heard a kinglet calling from somewhere near the back of the place. Jack waited and watched as I scanned the trees for it—and a red-tailed hawk flew over. The hawk flew low and fast, its dark breast-band contrasting with its white underside, and the whole of it in crisp focus against the achingly blue morning sky. Whoa. It flew from somewhere up the hill in the direction of Clam Cove. I got a three- or four-second look at it—about the same as the look I got of a shooting star last night.
Birch.
In the hawk’s wake, a titmouse began singing its spring song, sweet and loud, and house sparrows started chirping from across the road near where a few crows were perched low in a bare hardwood. A cold, bright, blue-sky morning.
The day kind of slid downhill from there. I got busy and distracted and forgot to take the trash out. A work puzzle proved frustratingly intractable. When finally Jack and I took off to retrieve the mail in my P.O. box, there wasn’t any. And during a quick trip to the grocery store, implausibly, my debit card was declined. Twice. (Turns out it was some kind of computer glitch at the bank.)
So we traveled, grocery bags and all, out Route 17 to Beech Hill. A group of mallards sat in lumps like bread loaves on the shores of the Chickawaukie Lake outfall. The hill rose white and bare inviting beyond the lake.
We were the only ones at the hill today, dog and I. No humans, no birds, no other critters that I could detect. Snow, trees, old weeds, rocks, a golden setting sun. And lots of tracks in the snow—tracks of people on skis and in snowshoes and of dogs and snowshoe hares and squirrels and the old coyote tracks from a few days ago. The late-afternoon light shone a faint pink-orange, and our sky-blue shadows stretched far across the snowy hillside. Beech Nut sat strong and lonesome at the top, with its matchless views of inland hills and bay islands.
Sundown.
Not much wind, though, despite the cold. Was nice up there. We lingered a little before starting back down.
And the sun lingered similarly—just a little longer than it did yesterday.
Beech Hill List
Beginning at 4:15 p.m., I hiked up the open trail.
No bird seen or heard on the hill today.
Elsewhere
1. Golden-crowned kinglet
2. Red-tailed hawk
3. Tufted titmouse
4. American crow
5. House sparrow
6. Herring gull
7. Rock pigeon
8. Mallard
Tags: golden-crowned kinglet, herring gull, house sparrow, red-tailed hawk, rock pigeon, tufted titmouse
