American crow.
Today would’ve been my mom’s 85th birthday. But on her 80th birthday she fell, and she died on 11 May 2006. Missing her today.
Which was a sunny day, to begin with, here on the 44th parallel. A load of birds out and about first thing—crows, house finches, chickadees, a titmouse, a male cardinal, a little downy woodpecker. Also a song sparrow and a brown-headed cowbird. (I know because heard their voices.) One big male crow—I assume it was a male—perched on the highest oak limb around and gave forth for several minutes with one of those familiar caw-caw! caw-caw! calls. Declaring its territory, I guess.
Northern cardinal.
Got busy, and before I knew it clouds had moved over and the wind had picked up. And the temperature was unseasonably low. There went my bike ride.
But Jack and I managed to get out at the end of it all. Nobody at the parking lot at the wooded Beech Hill trail. We took off in a hurry—not least because of the chill in the air.
Branches clattered loudly in the breeze. I neither heard nor saw any birds until about half-way up, when something small and brown flitted silently across the trail. We stopped. Waited. It finally jumped up onto a perch—a phoebe. As I was checking out the phoebe, a few snowflakes began to zip around me. And suddenly a young woman came hiking swiftly up behind us on the trail. She was wearing flip-flops.
Coming into the open fields, I heard a peep! and we stopped again. Another phoebe emerged. A pair of them. Then, at the summit, a fourth phoebe—one of the pair that’ll nest up there, I feel sure—flew swiftly out of one of the spruces and into the porch of Beech Nut. The wind was really whipping up there by then.
Beech Hill summit.
I scanned the hill for hawks but saw only a solitary herring gull flying at a considerable distance off toward the south. Dog and I retraced our steps back down into the woods. After a little while, I heard the calls of a crow. Then, as we started down the first big slope through the trees, a turkey suddenly lifted off from below us and flew high into the crown of a tree out of sight somewhere. Wild turkeys can really fly when they want to.
As we got close to the parking lot, I heard a chickadee. And right after that, the soft beeps of a white-breasted nuthatch.
Back home, the nuthatch pair appeared to have settled into some kind of domestic routine about their little cavity in the oak limb above the back deck. I stood for a long time watching their various courtship displays. I find it especially interesting to watch the one—the male, I assume—appear to sweep the limb above the hole. Back and forth, back and forth. I wonder if it’s some kind of marking behavior. Then back behind me, from across the road, I heard the unremarkable peeps of a house sparrow.
Western sky.
Tonight the stars are out. I’m hoping for a good, warm sunny day tomorrow. (Or at least warmish.)
Beech Hill List
Beginning at 5: 15 p.m., I hiked the wooded trails.
1. Eastern phoebe
2. Herring gull
3. American crow
4. Wild turkey
5. Black-capped chickadee
6. White-breasted nuthatch
Elsewhere
7. House finch
8. Song sparrow
9. Tufted titmouse
10. Brown-headed cowbird
11. Northern cardinal
12. Downy woodpecker
13. American robin
14. House sparrow
Tags: American crow, American robin, black-capped chickadee, brown-headed cowbird, downy woodpecker, eastern phoebe, herring gull, house finch, house sparrow, northern cardinal, song sparrow, tufted titmouse, white-breasted nuthatch, wild turkey
