We hiked through a little overnight snow for the third straight morning, a partly sunny morning this day. A few birds about, a couple photos, no mammals, a little breeze, a fragrant sagebrush sprig, my best friend as a companion.
All in all, a very nice hike.
Grandeur Peak Area List Beginning at 9:01 a.m. (MST), I hiked several hundred feet up a mountain.
1. Northern Flicker 2. Spotted Towhee 3. Woodhouse’s Scrub-jay 4. Black-billed Magpie* 5. American Robin* 6. Rock Pigeon* 7. Dark-eyed Junco 8. Black-capped Chickadee 9. House Finch** (v)
Elsewhere
10. European Starling
(v) Voice only *Also elsewhere **Voice only elsewhere
This day dawned warm (mid- to upper-30s (F)) and mostly overcast. My morning hike brought not many species, but pretty good numbers.
Birds were hopping back at home, though: I had as many species within ear- and eyeshot of my door. Sparrows, robin, chickadee (a species I did not have up the mountain trails)—and, last bird of the day, an American Kestrel, perched on a street light post overlooking the highway, with the city view behind him.
Thanks, kestrel.
Grandeur Peak Area List Beginning at 9:05 a.m. (MST), I hiked several hundred feet up a mountain.
8. Song Sparrow (v) 9. House Sparrow (v 10. American Robin 11. Eurasian Collared-dove 12. European Starling 13. Black-capped Chickadee 14. American Kestrel
Mammals
Rock Squirrel Red Squirrel
(v) Voice only *Also elsewhere **Voice only elsewhere
I can’t adequately describe the uplifting sensation of knowing the source of a very slight sound. I imagine it’s what levitation must feel like.
This morning while dog and I were ascending the steep, slippery trail in leafy Coyote Canyon, I heard the sound. So faint, but it made me stop stock still. A long warbling whistle, the pitch rising and falling abruptly, barely audible. But it made me suck in a little gasp. Because I knew at once what I hearing.
I knew at once because I’d heard it before, not that long ago, not far from that very section of trail: the “whisper” of a Townsend’s Solitaire.
I say “whisper,” but the song was clear—just exceedingly soft and delicate. You’d almost thing the bird that made the sound was perched at least a hundred feet away. But from experience, I knew better.
So right away I scanned the tops of nearby trees in the direction of the sound, and within a second or two I spied its source of it, a singing solitaire.
I’ve heard the same song at high volume volume, last spring a couple thousand feet up the mountainside: two male solitaires, each apparently working to outsing the other. And a sweet rollicking, beautiful song it was.
Today’s was like a ghost of that spring song, and I couldn’t help (again) but wonder why. Was the bird whispering to a nearby mate? Warming of the presence of a dog and human? Was the solitaire simply singing to itself, as I sometimes whistle a little tune quietly without even thinking?
I’ll likely never know the reason, but the magical thing to me is simply knowing where to look when I hear that sound.
Grandeur Peak Area List Beginning at 9 a.m. (MST), I hiked several hundred feet up a mountain.
