I like an overcast day. If not for my inability to take a decent photo in dim light, I’d prefer birding on cloudy days.
This morning was gray and calm and pleasantly cool. Spotted (or heard) a good selection of birds up the mountain—including a singing female grosbeak, a random pair of cowbirds, and a wayward collared dove.
Most exciting for me, though: after three days of trying, I somehow managed to grab a single half-way decent photo of a Warbling Vireo.
Grandeur Peak Area List Beginning at 7:45 a.m., I hiked a few hundred feet up a mountain.
Another fun morning hike. Even before the hike, in fact: the first bird I spied this early morning—perched on the tip of a conifer out front of the house—was a first-of-year species (Brown-headed Cowbird).
But during the hike proper—which happened on a nippy morning (40s (F) to start, in the mountain shade) turning into a warmish morning—I counted lots of species, failed at tracking a couple of new songs, but managed to tally a new lifer and see a bunch of hummingbirds.
The lifer: a Plumbeous Vireo, which I first heard, than caught a glimpse of. Alas, no photo, though. (Yet.)
Grandeur Peak Area List Beginning at 8 a.m., I hiked several hundred feet up a mountain.
I got my best photo of a Yellow Warbler this morning. I’ve been spotting the same bird, singing in the same birch tree, for weeks. Never could pin it down.
But this third foggy morning in a row, soon after I discovered that the cloud had burned away about half-way up the hill, I stood and waited and got just the glimpse I’ve been looking for.
Hey, little birdie.
Beech Hill List Beginning at 7:30 a.m., I hiked the open trail.
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
