A bit warmer this morning. Dog and I got to the trailhead about 15 minutes later than yesterday. A little cloudiness. A nice morning.
Started quiet—but soon enough I was enjoying a few nice surprises—e.g., a vocal Juniper Titmouse, the cry of a raven (first in many months), and a Townsend’s Solitaire popping up right in front of us on the trail.
I’ll take this kind of birding excursion any ol’ day.
Grandeur Peak Area List Beginning at 8:42 a.m., I hiked a few hundred feet up a mountain.
1. House Finch* 2. American Robin 3. Woodhouse’s Scrub-jay 4. Spotted Towhee** 5. Pine Siskin (v) 6. Yellow-rumped Warbler 7. Black-capped Chickadee** 8. Dark-eyed Junco 9. Northern Flicker 10. Black-billed Magpie* 11. Townsend’s Solitaire 12. Juniper Titmouse 13. Common Raven (v) 14. Red-breasted Nuthatch (v)
Elsewhere
15. Lesser Goldfinch (v)
Mammals
Mountain Cottontail
(v) Voice only *Also elsewhere **Voice only elsewhere
Around the solstices, the changes in the lengths of days slows, like the far points of a swinging pendulum. At the equinoxes, the photoperiod increases or lessens swiftly. These early summer days can seem much the same, one after another—but for birds, the opposite is the case.
Now’s the time of nestlings and fledglings and hiding and growing and putting on weight and storing energy. Migration’s not all that far away.
Today, dog and I got scolded by multiple species (most of which were out of sight) for getting too near the young ’uns. Buntings, chippies, vireos, hummingbirds—and gnatcatchers. Especially gnatcatchers.
At the end of our hike, we surprised a mama quail with itty bitty babies that’d hatched not many hours before—iny little peeping that things could scramble away in the understory.
A lot of things happen in a hurry during this slow solstitical turn.
Grandeur Peak Area List Beginning at 8 a.m., I hiked a few hundred feet up a mountain.
I worried a bit yesterday when I encountered the male uphill from the nest a bit, very near the trail, emitting a sharp alarm chip. When I then checked the nest, the baby birds were still there, at least three fuzzy heads bobbing—but it was the first time I hadn’t seen a parent with them. Wondered what had spooked the dad, or where the mom got off to. Didn’t worry, too much, though.
Turned out I had good reason.
I suspect the resident magpie family got the nestlings. A good while ago, the magpie pair fledged a brood of big, loud, healthy youngsters. Their nest was just up the slope from the grosbeaks’. Perhaps something happened to the female, which left the male as the only parent to fend for the youngsters.
An empty nest is a sad thing.
Grandeur Peak Area List Beginning at 8:45 a.m., I hiked a few hundred feet up a mountain.
