This morning’s hike up the cool, shady foothills began quietly. It took a good fifteen minutes before I had a half-dozen bird species on my (mental) list. Feathered things did begin to flit and flutter, but mostly hidden by vegetation or in swift flight from one place to another. Time to lay low, apparently. The final count (thirteen) was the lowest I can remember.
One of a pair of tanagers.
Still, things were interesting—plenty of young buntings and towhees and robins. (In fact, all that hidden chipping and subtle vocalizing made for a challenging birding excursion.) No outlandish sightings, true.
But lucky thirteen turned out to be another pair of tanagers in the tanager.
Grandeur Peak Area List Beginning at 8 a.m., I hiked a few hundred feet up a mountain.
1. Black-capped Chickadee (v) 2. American Robin 3. Woodhouse’s Scrub-jay 4. Mourning Dove 5. Lazuli Bunting 6. Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 7. Black-chinned Hummingbird 8. House Finch** 9. Rock Pigeon* 10. Spotted Towhee 11. Pine Siskin (v) 12. Black-headed Grosbeak (v) 13. Western Tanager
Elsewhere
14. Black-billed Magpie 15. House Sparrow 16. Red-tailed Hawk
Mammals
Red Squirrel (v)
(v) Voice only *Also elsewhere **Voice only elsewhere
Serious birders use shorthand for the species they see or hear—four-letter alpha codes (based on the English names) standardized by the Institute for Bird Populations. So when you hear somebody say they saw a MODO and a flock of BOWAs, what they really mean is they saw a Mourning Dove and a bunch of Bohemian Waxwings.
The rules are fairly easy to follow, but sometimes there are conflicts. Back in Maine, for instance, when I saw a Black-throated Green Warbler, I might refer to it as a BTGW—but now that I’m birding Utah, what if I spy a Black-throated Gray Warbler? Welp, gotta learn to refer to it as a BTYW.
Long story short: today I saw a BTYW.
Grandeur Peak Area List Beginning at 8 a.m., I hiked a few hundred feet up a mountain.
This morning’s walk with dog up our usual trail began eerily quiet. For several minutes, I neither saw nor heard a single bird. Then, for the next few, I heard one, two, three birds. Individual birds, that is (although they happened to be of three different species).
We got to the trailhead a bit later than yesterday, so this seemed odd. At first. Until I began to consider the warmth, dryness, photoperiod, and all the other subtle (to humans) factors that must go into a bird’s daily activities.
With a few minutes more, the numbers had increased to about normal for the season. And by hike’s end, I had a nice list, with a few notable sightings.
As, while birding, I often say out loud: “You never know.”
Grandeur Peak Area List Beginning at 8:15 a.m., I hiked a few hundred feet up a mountain.
1. Red-tailed Hawk (v) 2. Rock Pigeon* 3. Black-chinned Hummingbird 4. Woodhouse’s Scrub-jay 5. Mourning Dove* 6. Lazuli Bunting 7. American Robin* 8. House Finch** 9. Lesser Goldfinch** 10. Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 11. Spotted Towhee 12. Black-capped Chickadee 13. Black-headed Grosbeak (v) 14. Virginia’s Warbler 15. Warbling Vireo 16. Pine Siskin 17. Chipping Sparrow 18. California Quail* (v) 19. Western Tanager
Elsewhere
20. Eurasian Collared Dove (v) 21. Black-billed Magpie
Mammals
Red Squirrel (v)
(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
