American robin.
You could feel it in the air today, the pending end of summer. It rained early—a fairly steady rain—and yet by afternoon, the air seemed crisp and dry. Certainly cooler than yesterday. As I backed out of the driveway with Jack to head to Beech Hill, in the rear-view mirror I saw a robin hopping about in the parking lot. First robin I’d seen in a while.
Birch.
And at Beech Hill you could sense a nervousness in the breeze. Molting jays were pecking on nuts, catbirds were mewing, heard a flicker’s cry for a change. As we started up the trail, a swift accipiter—a Cooper’s hawk, I feel sure— zipped down the slope alongside us, flying low to the ground. We passed quite a few people and dogs. I stopped to talk with a pair of folks with binoculars, and we all three ended up training our binocs at a pair of turkey vultures circling over, southbound, as well as a high-flying, croaking raven.
Spotted an alder flycatcher, heard waxwings and yellow-rumps in overflight. Farther up the trail, I spotted a second raven while talking with another group of hikers about the birds and weather and changing seasons and the strange dearth of monarchs and bees. And at the summit I ran into new birder friends from New Jersey, who had returned to the hill with their dog. We all—three humans, two dogs—hung out at the top a while then moseyed down, talking birding, looking for birds. At one point, near the road, a little cluster of small birds began moving through, warblers and chickadees and perhaps others. I got some shots of one little guy but didn’t see until processing the photos that it was not a warbler at all, but a field sparrow.
The temperature is dipping fast tonight. Already it’s snuck below 50 (F). The end of summer is nigh.
Beech Hill List
Beginning at 4:30 p.m., I hiked the open trail.
1. Gray catbird
2. Blue jay
3. American crow*
4. Northern flicker (v)
5. American goldfinch (v)
6. Cooper’s hawk
7. Cedar waxwing
8. Turkey vulture
9. Common raven
10. Alder flycatcher
11. Yellow-rumped warbler
12. Song sparrow (v)
13. Eastern towhee (v)
14. Common yellowthroat (v)
15. Field sparrow
16. Black-capped chickadee**
17. Merlin
Elsewhere
18. Herring gull
19. Red-eyed vireo (v)
20. American robin
21. Double-crested cormorant
22. Ring-billed gull
v = Voice only
*Also elsewhere
**Voice only elsewhere
Tags: alder flycatcher, American crow, American goldfinch, American robin, black-capped chickadee, blue jay, Cedar waxwing, common raven, common yellowthroat, cooper's hawk, double-crested cormorant, eastern towhee, field sparrow, gray catbird, herring gull, merlin, northern flicker, red-eyed vireo, ring-billed gull, song sparrow, turkey vulture, yellow-rumped warbler
