My morning hike with dog was supposed to be a short one (since grocery shopping after was in the cards), but I got waylaid by some interesting birds. And not a few this day.
Hawk in the big olive tree. Pigeon and chickadee and gnatcatcher and warbler and yet another (unidentified) hummer—and sparrows.
(The sparrows brought the thrills this day, especially a young white-crowned.)
Grandeur Peak Area List At 7:12 a.m. (8:12 MDT), I hiked a few hundred feet up a mountain.
This morning’s was a grand hike. Coolish in the shade, a cloud-dappled blue sky, warmish in the sun, plenty of interesting birds to listen to and look at.
Saw finches, corvids, wren, sparrow, doves, towhee, hawk. Heard gnatcatcher and flicker. But the birds that warmed my heart up on the bluff were a little bevy of chickadees. The kind that’s the state bird of my old home-state of Maine. The kind that have a every-so-slightly different accent here—but behave exactly like the bird I know and live. The kind that occasionally oblige me with a nice photo.
Another in a string of very similar September days—smoky, cool early, cloudless (or nearly so). About the same number of bird species, too, but different ones (as always). Few chances for great photos, but one that stood out.
