Had a little rain this morning, so dog and I waited a while before we took off up the misty foothills.
Our hike differed a tad from the usual, in part because of the late hour, but mostly because I was a little worried about Jack. [He’s got an intestinal issue, and we got an end-of-day vet appointment.] There were birds, but few. And fewer still would let me see them. And none at all would pose for photos.
Until the very end of our hike—the very, bitterest end—when a gang of chickadees showed up, and flitting among them, a pair of kinglets.
One of the kinglets posed.
Grandeur Peak Area List At 10:30 a.m. (11:30 MDT), I hiked a few hundred feet up a mountain.
1. Woodhouse’s Scrub-jay* (v) 2. Sharp-shinned Hawk 3. House Finch** 4. Black-capped Chickadee* 5. Rock Pigeon* 6. Dark-eyed Junco 7. Northern Flicker (v) 8. Pine Siskin (v) 9. Song Sparrow (v) 10. Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Elsewhere
11. House Sparrow 12. Lesser Goldfinch
(v) Voice only *Also elsewhere **Voice only elsewhere
No clouds hung in the blue, blue sky as dog and I hiked up in the mountain shade this morning. Calm, a little nippy, a little birdy. And before very long at all, I had four kinds of finches on my list.
And by the end of our hike, when the final species popped into view, I had three corvids. Those two groups accounted for half today’s total.
And that final species? A little group of four Steller’s Jays.
Grandeur Peak Area List At 8:03 a.m. (9:03 MDT), I hiked a few hundred feet up a mountain.
1. Black-billed Magpie* 2. House Finch** 3. Northern Flicker 4. Spotted Towhee (v) 5. Rock Pigeon* 6. Dark-eyed Junco 7. Ruby-crowned Kinglet 8. Woodhouse’s Scrub-jay 9. Lesser Goldfinch 10. American Robin 11. Pine Siskin (v) 12. American Goldfinch 13. Black-capped Chickadee 14. Steller’s Jay
Mammals
Red Squirrel
(v) Voice only *Also elsewhere **Voice only elsewhere
I saw a crow today. Actually, two crows. I so rarely see crows out here in the Mountain West—occasionally I see them hanging around the supermarket parking lots in town, but only two or three times have I encountered a crow on my hikes in the Wasatch foothills with dog.
Back in Maine, it was a rare day when I didn’t hear or see multiple American Crows. Every fall about this time, in fact, they’d hold large conventions in the Beech Hill blueberry barrens—scores of them, Maybe hundreds.
Well, I saw a pair of them this morning, flying in the blue high above us. A pair of crows. It was a thrill.
Grandeur Peak Area List At 7:54 a.m. (8:54 MDT), I hiked a few hundred feet up a mountain.
1. Yellow-rumped Warbler 2. Black-billed Magpie** 3. House Finch 4. Woodhouse’s Scrub-jay 5. Rock Pigeon* 6. Pine Siskin (v) 7. Spotted Towhee 8. Northern Flicker 9. American Crow 10. American Goldfinch (v) 11. Black-capped Chickadee 12. Dark-eyed Junco 13. American Robin 14. Lesser Goldfinch (v)
Elsewhere
15. Song Sparrow
Mammals
Red Squirrel
(v) Voice only *Also elsewhere **Voice only elsewhere
