Rained much of the night. Stopped long enough for a morning hike with dog. Damp, green, humid, lush. Interesting walk—including a first-of-year patch of fireweed (ate my first blossom of the year, yum), Mourning Dove singing from the chimney of Beech Nut, Philadelphia Vireo singing by the road, A white-tail showing up in a photo I took of a flicker.
On way back home I stopped in traffic on Route 1 to let a little family of Mallards cross.
More rain later. Precipitation is generally not a bad thing.
Beech Hill List Beginning at 8:15 a.m., I hiked the open trail.
Today I realized what my favorite bird’s song is—current favorite anyway. The song of the Savannah Sparrow.
Sure, I have other favorites—the thrushes’ songs, of course, and the song of the Black-throated Blue Warbler (my favorite wood-warbler)—but something about the Savannah’s subtle-yet-loud, unassuming-yet-beautiful, far-carrying, wee-yet-unbridled song just thrills me like no other. Simple as that.
Maybe it’s because I haven’t heard it as often as usual this year. (So infrequently did I hear it that I feared no Savannahs were nesting in my patch for the first time ever I can remember.) But this morning’s song in the fog—with the little hiccup at the end—lifted my spirits in beautiful ways.
Yep, it’s my favorite.
Beech Hill List Beginning at 7:15 a.m., I hiked the open trail.
Summer is a time of shade. This morning dog and I got to the hill pretty early, after the sun had barely risen above the eastern canopy, now thick with new green leaves. The shadows were long, the light on the understory filtered and diffuse. The wild birds—with nestlings or fledglings or other secret business—lurked in shadow.
Whenever Jack and I moved into the shade, however, we were beset upon by mosquitoes. A dilemma: Do we hurry to the warm sun patches, where our fur or sweatshirt made us pant or sweat? Or do we linger in the cool of the shadows, where the action was.
Truth be told, we did a little of both.
Beech Hill List Beginning at 6:45 a.m., I hiked the open trail—and then some.
1. Red-eyed Vireo 2. Ovenbird 3. Black-and-white Warbler 4. Common Yellowthroat 5. Tufted Titmouse 6. Rose-breasted Grosbeak 7. Eastern Towhee 8. Alder Flycatcher 9. Cedar Waxwing 10. Chestnut-sided Warbler 11. Song Sparrow 12. Nashville Warbler 13. Eastern Bluebird 14. American Goldfinch 15. Tree Swallow 16. Field Sparrow 17. Eastern Phoebe 18. American Crow 19. Blue Jay 20. Chipping Sparrow 21. Yellow Warbler 22. Black-billed Cuckoo 23. Gray Catbird 24. Purple Finch 25. Eastern Wood-pewee 26. Black-capped Chickadee 27. Pileated Woodpecker 28. Downy Woodpecker 29. White-breasted Nuthatch 30. American Robin 31. Black-throated Green Warbler 32. American Redstart
Elsewhere
33. Herring Gull 34. Northern Cardinal
v = Voice only *Also elsewhere **Voice only elsewhere
Bird Report is an intermittent record of what's outside my window in Rockport, Maine, USA (44°08'N latitude, 69°06'W longitude), and vicinity. —Brian Willson
