Song sparrow.
Working at my desk this sunny morning, I heard a sudden eruption of the cawing of crows. The kind of noise they make while haranguing a hawk. I pushed back my chair and walked upstairs, picked up my camera, and stepped quietly out onto the back deck. When I peered around the corner of the house, I saw them—about a half dozen crows, sitting on a high, bare oak limb, all facing east, toward the end of the limb, all hollering. From where I stood, the birds were silhouetted against the morning sun. I saw no hawk in the direction they focused their diatribe, and I had no chance to focus my camera before the whole bunch of them took off, still cawing, and wheeled around against the sky. Only then did I notice that one of the birds had a different style of flight. It was circling on wide wings and not flapping much, whereas the crows were flapping around like crazy. I recognized it as some kind of buteo, crow-sized. Too small for a red-tail, I think. I think too large for a broad-winged. My guess is it was a red-shouldered—but I’ll never know.
Grass.
Jack and I were hiking up Beech Hill before sundown. I only had a jay on my list so far, when we came upon a pair of quiet sparrows on the trail. The sparrows flitted into some nearby overgrowth, and we stopped. One of the birds stood high enough in a bush to be able to peak between some leaves to watch us. I was able to peak between the leaves, also, and saw its bright eye there. I snapped off a few between-the-leaves photos, the crept very slowly to a point where the bird stood open to view. Got some better photos then. Before it flew, it spun around, turned its head, and kept its eye on us while facing away. I thought it a little comical that, the way it sat there, its tail jutted at an awkward angle, a twig being in the way.
A short time later, descending the hill, in the waning sunlight, I added a third (and last) bird to my list: a northern flicker. I heard its cry down toward Beech Hill Road. Then I spotted a solitary bird sitting at the very top of a roadside tree, maybe a couple hundred yards away. I couldn’t ID it through field glasses, so we moved closer. Then I saw a second bird, flying toward us from a point beyond the tree. The second bird was easy to identify from the way it flew and its silhouette—a flicker. The treetop bird, I decided, must’ve been a blue jay. When it took wing a moment later, I got a good lack at it. By golly, I was right.
Monhegan.
P.S. Nearing the Beech Hill summit today, I looked off to the south at the familiar, hazy shape of Monhegan floating on the horizon far beyond Chickawaukie Lake. I thought about how I’ll be out there three days from today. How easy and free I’ll feel out there, birding with good friends. How it’s a different world out there. And I also thought about an amazing Monhegan-birding friend who passed away just yesterday. We took the same boat out last year. This year won’t be the same.
Beech Hill List
Beginning at 5:30 p.m., I hiked the open trail.
1. Blue jay
2. Song sparrow
3. Northern flicker
Elsewhere
4. American crow
5. Buteo (sp?)
6. Herring gull
7. Cedar waxwing
8. Black-capped chickadee
Tags: American crow, black-capped chickadee, blue jay, Cedar waxwing, herring gull, northern flicker, song sparrow
