And I thought yesterday was busy. Got to my desk pretty early, got in The Zone right away—and stayed in The Zone pretty much all day. But not without a break or two. On such break occurred when I heard the unmistakable voice of a pileated woodpecker coming from somewhere in the trees out back. I hurried up for my camera then stepped out onto the deck. And waited. Listened. Scanned for movement. Nothing—except for the small, subtle voice of a nuthatch.

Also heard house finches chirping across the road and saw herring and ring-billed gulls on a quick trip to town. But not until quite late did I manage to exit The Zone. Jack seemed happy about that, because next thing he knew, we were hopping out of the pickup at Beech Hill.

We’d hurried there. The sky was dimming. Time was short. It had been a mostly sunny, chilly, breezy day, but now the air was growing calm, and a wedge of clouds had edged up from the west. I saw a crow fly over and heard chickadees. We started quickly up the trail. As I had yesterday, I heard a robin’s evening calls from down the southern slope.

We met a couple of late hikers descending, and then we were alone up there. As the sun set, dramatically, beyond the great wedge-shaped cloud.

We circled Beech Nut and hurried down. In the twilight, I saw a sparrow flit silently up off the trail in front of us. A song sparrow, I imagine, but of course I couldn’t be sure. Then as we arrived back at the truck, I heard two or three song sparrows chipping in the dimness under the trees. And a couple of white-throats. Finally—rather surprisingly—I heard the wheep! call of an eastern towhee. First towhee on my Beech Hill list in a while.

Three sparrows at the end of it. Kind of nice to be out of The Zone.

Beech Hill List
Beginning at 5:30 p.m., I hiked the open trail.

1. American crow
2. Black-capped chickadee (voice)
3. American robin (voice)
4. Song sparrow
5. White-throated sparrow (voice)
6. Eastern towhee (voice)

Elsewhere

7. House finch
8. Pileated woodpecker
9. White-breasted nuthatch
10. Blue jay
11. Herring gull
12. Ring-billed gull

Tags: American crow, American robin, black-capped chickadee, eastern towhee, herring gull, house finch, pileated woodpecker, ring-billed gull, song sparrow, white-throated sparrow

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 18th, 2011 at 11:03 pm and is filed under Lists, Observations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.