Laughing gull dining on a flying ant swarm.
A mostly cloudy day. I spent much of it writing at the kitchen table. And then Jack and I eagerly started up the road toward Beech Hill.
Eastern phoebe.
We hadn’t gotten far when I noticed (yet another) swirling flock of laughing gulls near Clam Cove. I knew what they were doing: going after a swarm of flying insects. I’ve seen it happen with carpenter ants before, but whatever the insects were, it’s an amazing display, as the gulls flutter and dip and veer and rise, snagging the little flies out of the sky. I decided to pull over and grab a few photos. A couple minutes later, a car pulled over and asked what the gulls were after, and we had a little chat. It was a couple from Georgia heading up to Bar Harbor with an interest in birds.
At the hill, the overcast sky made things sort of gloomy, and the trails were wet still from last night’s rain. Heard a few of the usual species on the way up—many catbirds—and had a surprise visit from a phoebe for a change.. At the summit, I talked with a fellow hiker at Beech Nut for a while. Then, just after we began to descend, I heard the chips of a couple yellowthroats. We stopped. I “pished” them in—as well as some white-throated sparrows. Hard to photograph birds that like to hide in the shrubbery, but I gave it a go for a while. Then I heard the wee voices of what could’ve been nestlings, and we crept closer. That’s when an adult chestnut-sided warbler popped up with a caterpillar in its beak.
Common yellowthroat (female).
As we resumed our descent, at the junction of the upper loop, I heard the musical chattering of a pileated woodpecker. First one of those in a while. Then, at the big curve in the lower wooded trail, I heard the quay! note of a hermit thrush, so we stopped and waited quietly. Sure enough, the bird popped up and posed on the end of a branch. But as I was focusing, another bird appeared high on the trunk of a tree about fifty feet beyond the thrush, and I never did get the thrush shot. The other bird turned out to be a flicker.
Pewee down in the oak grove again—actually, three of them today.
And, tonight, a little more rain has arrived. With all the arid weather happening elsewhere on the continent, the certainty of rain is but a blessing.
Beech Hill List
Beginning at 5 p.m., I hiked the wooded trails.
1. American crow* (v)
2. Black-capped chickadee (v)
3. Gray catbird
4. American goldfinch* (v)
5. Cedar waxwing (v)
6. Eastern towhee
7. Herring gull* (v)
8. Eastern phoebe
9. Song sparrow (v)
10. Common yellowthroat
11. White-throated sparrow
12. Chestnut-sided warbler
13. Pileated woodpecker (v)
14. Hermit thrush
15. Northern flicker
16. Eastern wood-pewee (v)
Elsewhere
17. Northern cardinal (v)
18. Osprey
19. Rock pigeon
20. Laughing gull
21. Mourning dove
v = Voice only
*Also elsewhere
Beech Nut.
Tags: American crow, American goldfinch, black-capped chickadee, Cedar waxwing, chestnut-sided warbler, common yellowthroat, eastern phoebe, eastern towhee, eastern wood-pewee, gray catbird, hermit thrush, herring gull, laughing gull, mourning dove, northern cardinal, northern flicker, osprey, pileated woodpecker, rock pigeon, song sparrow, white-throated sparrow
