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Posts Tagged ‘northern shrike’
Sunday, October 28th, 2012
 Northern shrike. A little rain early, then overcast. Just a breath of wind. Got out to do a little pre-storm stocking up, and somehow ended up at Beech Hill with my dog.
 Yellow-rumped warbler. A bunch of little kids were there for an apparently very fun excursion. Jack and I snuck up before them. Right away, I heard chickadees, a woodpecker, kinglets, and more. A small flock of white-throated sparrows was flitting about in the tangles, and a titmouse appeared out of nowhere, nibbling on some wild tree seed. Heard crows and jays and yellow-rumped warblers. Quite a few ‘rumps up there today, in fact.
Robin, flicker. We headed over the summit a ways and I discovered the top section of wooded trail had been rerouted—to avoid a notorious mudhole, I expect. The new stretch is curvy, steep, and alluring. More yellow-rumps down along the field.
Returning, I spied a lone songbird high in one of the trailside birches. It looked different from the usual suspects, so I trained my binocs on it: a northern shrike. Tried to sneak up for a photo, but it flew. Lucky for me, it flew slightly nearer—but still no awesome photo. I heard the shrike’s shrill call as it flew away.
By the time we got home a few minutes later, the sky had mostly cleared, and we had ourselves another unseasonably warm afternoon.
 Birch. Tonight is cloudless, with a nervous breeze. Hm….
Beech Hill List
Beginning at 2 p.m., I hiked the open trail.
1. Black-capped chickadee**
2. Hairy woodpecker
3. White-throated sparrow
4. Golden-crowned kinglet (v)
5. Tufted titmouse
6. American crow*
7. Yellow-rumped warbler
8. Blue jay* (v)
9. American robin* (v)
10. Northern flicker (v)
11. Northern shrike
Elsewhere
12. Red-tailed hawk
13. Herring gull
14. Rock pigeon
v = Voice only
*Also elsewhere
**Voice only elsewhere
Tags: American crow, American robin, black-capped chickadee, blue jay, golden-crowned kinglet, hairy woodpecker, herring gull, northern flicker, northern shrike, red-tailed hawk, rock pigeon, tufted titmouse, white-throated sparrow, yellow-rumped warbler
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Monday, March 12th, 2012
 Northern shrike (singing). It all began with last night’s woodcock serenade. Then I slept—might’ve dreamed about woodcocks, not sure—and awoke to a sun-splashed morning that promised temperatures high enough for a vigorous bike ride. Truth be told, it was in my mind all day, my bike-ride-to-be. But still I managed to get a little work done.
 Northern shrike. Outside, the house finch sang. A house sparrow chirped in an evergreen bush at the door to the motel across the road. A titmouse called. I managed to last until nearly 3 p.m. before I took dog upstairs, donned my clown garb, and set sail on two wheels along Route 1.
Glorious. Endorphins. Rock doves in Rockland, gulls overhead, roadside crows, even a goldfinch. I pedaled and meditated and pumped and daydreamed. Nothing like living in the moment, with fast breathing and a high pulse rate.
But that was only the beginning, because Jack and I still had Beech Hill to hike. Which we did, starting at about a quarter to five. We started at the wooded trail—our favorite (albeit shunned over most of the winter in favor of the easier open trail)—and began our slog through the sweet mud and between the bare branches of hardwoods jam-packed with potential energy. Before we’d gone a hundred yards, I heard the sudden, bright song of a purple finch coming from the top of a tree behind us. Then a mourning dove, then crows. the sun angled down from ahead of us, and we met a man walking two dogs. Along the upper wooded trails, I kept my eye out for the first fox sparrow, but none appeared. Then, as we emerged into the upper fields, a solitary bird flapped oddly away toward the east and perched high in a tree. I didn’t recognize its style of flight, could really ID it by sight. So I snapped off a few distant photos to check later.
 Pussy willow. We’d continued a little ways toward the summit when I heard an unfamiliar whistling behind me. We stopped. We turned. I didn’t recognize the call—which, considering I’ve hiked Beech Hill at least a thousand times in the past few years, piqued my interest. So we began to retrace our steps back toward the fields (although Jack didn’t really get it, wasn’t really buying in). A few stop-and-go paces later, I realized the song I was hearing belonged the bird I’d seen a minute before. We followed a hedgerow toward the sound, and there still perched the bird. Then I got a decent look through my binoculars.
It was a shrike. A northern shrike. Crazy.
We crept along the hedgrow in hopes I might get a better photo. I’d never heard a singing shrike before—a lovely, whistly sort of sound, reminiscent of a muted, delicate sort of catbird call. Sweet, in a way (which struck me as ironic, considering shrikes are meat-eating songbirds that dine on mice and small birds and whose habit is to impale their prey on thorns and barbed wire). This was the kind of moment that thrills me: an unexpected natural sighting, a new discovery, a gift from the gods. Never mind that spring is peeking around the corner. Just follow the glaring signs. Daffodils rising, pussy willows budding, earthworms churning in the new, soft mud. Woodcocks arriving. As I we got nearer, I snapped off a few photos—just as a mature bald eagle flapped by on enormous wings out toward the bay beyond the tiny shrike. Thilling.
Eventually, the northern shrike flitted off to the crown of a tree farther down the slope, and I decided to leave it alone. Leave it alone to head on up toward its far-northern nesting region. I wonder if I’ll ever hear the song of a shrike again.
We reached the summit, Jack and I, then headed down the open trail a ways before turning back. Down in the bottomlands, there were chickadees and the calls of American robins—our resident birds, with worms in mind, not the Canadian birds that moved through a week or two ago and fueled up on staghorn sumac.
Back home, tonight, no woodcocks that I could hear. But Jupiter and Venus set not a knuckles-bredth apart—closer than I’ve ever seen them.
Tiny winged insects. Sandals without socks. Thrill upon thrill upon thrill.
Beech Hill List
Beginning at 4:45 p.m., I hiked the wooded trail (and then some).
1. Purple finch (voice)
2. Mourning dove (voice)
3. American crow (voice)
4. Northern shrike
5. Bald eagle
6. Black-capped chickadee
7. American robin (voice)
Elsewhere
8. American woodcock
9. House finch
10. House sparrow
11. Tufted titmouse
12. Herring gull
13. Rock pigeon
14. Ring-billed gull
15. American goldfinch
16. Northern cardinal
Tags: American crow, American goldfinch, American robin, American woodcock, bald eagle, black-capped chickadee, herring gull, house finch, house sparrow, mourning dove, northern cardinal, northern shrike, purple finch, ring-billed gull, rock pigeon, tufted titmouse
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Friday, February 4th, 2011
 Barren slope. Sunshine came softly through my a-window today. All right (with due respect to Donovan), it really came rather harshly through my window—considering the mounds of snow lying all about. And the reflective properties of masses of flakes frozen water. All that.
 Rodent tracks. But just another gorgeous winter day. Crows flapping around, as usual. Chickadees singing out back. For various uninteresting (errand-related) reasons, Jack and I didn’t embark on our Beech Hill trip until mid-afternoon. We blasted into the parking lot at the same time as yesterday—right about 3:30.
We’d already followed the well-defined snowshoe track around through the first grove of trees when I heard something. I wasn’t even sure it was a bird. A repeated, buzzy squawk coming from across the road, some distance away. We waited. I heard it again. I convinced Jack to turn around and we retraced our steps to the parking lot and back down toward the road. There it was again—but also a chirp or two, some musical squawks, a note, a buzz. I began to wonder if I was listening a wayward starling or something.
Then I saw a small bird perched near the tip of a bare-limbed hardwood through the trees across the road. Trained my binoculars on it. From the way it sat, the way its tail jutted straight out, I thought—whoa, that’s a shrike. And it occurred to me that I’d never heard a shrike’s call before. I seemed to remember reading it made a peculiar, jumbled series of sounds. It was a shrike, I was convinced of it. I attempted a distant photo.
While fixated on the shrike, I also heard a nuthatch and a chickadee. And then I began to wonder if the bird I’d dubbed a robin yesterday might’ve really been this shrike. That gave me something of a pause.
 Rodent tracks. We turned around and started up the hill.
A lovely, blue-sky day. But the most notable part of today’s hike, to me, were the many tiny rodent tracks winding around on otherwise unblemished surfaces the snow. One track, in fact, showed that the rodent—a meadow vole, I assume—pattered around and, returning, actually dove under the snow, leaving a little mound in its wake. It must be challenging, being a meadow vole in winter. Owls, shrikes. But these little guys seemed to be gamers.
The bay looked particularly lovely from the summit. To the northeast, I admired the snowly slopes of the peaks of Mount Desert Island. A couple of cross-country skiers had been up there today. One, in fact, had left the trail and skied around the southern hillside. I noted from their tracks a few leashless dogs, as well. And I picked up a pile of dog poop in the trail that was not Jack’s. Oh, well.
 Rodent tracks. Descending, I heard the caws of a crow. Then, approaching the road again, I heard the distinctive squee! of a robin. Nice. So perhaps I wasn’t wrong yesterday, after all. Perhaps, in fact, I’d heard both shrike and robin yesterday—only I didn’t recognize the shrike.
After returning home, going online, and listening to recordings of the call of a northern shrike, I now have no doubt that’s what I saw and heard today. A first-of-year bird for me.
Elsewhere? Well, I looked for the red-shouldered hawk around Clam Cove. Didn’t see it, though. Saw herring gulls and pigeons perched atop the old Van Baalen’s building in Rockland. Still, not so bad for a deep-winter birding day. Not so bad at all.
Beech Hill List
Beginning at 3:30 p.m., I hiked the open trail.
1. Northern shrike
2. White-breasted nuthatch (voice)
3. Black-capped chickadee (voice)
4. American crow (voice)
5. American robin (voice)
Elsewhere
6. Herring gull
7. Rock pigeon
 Mount Desert.
Tags: American crow, American robin, black-capped chickadee, herring gull, northern shrike, rock pigeon, white-breasted nuthatch
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| Bird Report is a (sometimes intermittent) record of the birds I encounter while hiking, see while driving, or spy outside my window. —Brian Willson |
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