Gray catbird.
The sun came out. The water vapor stayed. As did the deer flies—hard to believe how many there are swarming around your head as you walk the wooded trails, or how persistent is their hum. Or, to be fair, how they hardly ever light or bite.
Eastern towhee (male).
The usual birds for a while, and then—coming around the corner by the stone where the flat expanse of poplars grow—I saw a fair-sized brown bird take off in the understory, fly silently between tree trunks and around and to the right and out of sight. I could swear it was a daytime barred owl. In fact, I’m gonna call it such.
Heard an alder flycatcher again. And flickers in undulating flight are showing up everywhere. Veeries, of course. Always veeries.
Toward the summit, I heard the voice of the wood thrush that sings up there sometimes. And crows. And the beginnings of the sparrows. I generally see or hear no sparrows in the wooded section at all (yesterday’s white-throated sparrow voice being an exception), but entering the open slopes, right away the most common five will sing and/or flit by. Usually in this order: song sparrow, field sparrow, savannah sparrow, white-throated sparrow, chipping sparrow. The chippy is the same bird, always singing from a tall spruce down by Beech Hill Road.
Savannah sparrow.
At several points along the open trails, female towhees suddenly flitted out into the path just in front of us, Jack and me, and began to hop along ust out of reach, no more than a dozen or twenty feet away. Clearly decoy behavior—which I’ve noticed for the past few days—but interesting nonetheless. The bird seems absolutely nonchalant about it. Just a-hoppin’ along. Nothing to see here. ‘Course she knows exactly what she’s doing.
Also this day, I’m able to list an eastern phoebe and an eastern pewee—the first day in a while I’ve counted three flycatchers. And it was nice also that a number of birds teed up cooperatively to pose for photos.
All in all a not bad day.
Eastern towhee.
Beech Hill List
Beginning at 6:45 a.m., I walked all trails.
1. Red-eyed vireo (voice)
2. Ovenbird (voice)
3. American goldfinch
4. Chestnut-sided warbler
5. Common yellowthroat
6. Veery
7. Cedar waxwing
8. Eastern towhee
9. Gray catbird
10. Barred owl
11. Black-capped chickadee
12. American redstart (voice)
13. Alder flycatcher (voice)
14. American crow (voice)
15. Black-and-white warbler (voice)
16. Northern flicker
17. Song sparrow
18. Mourning dove
19. Wood thrush (voice)
20. Field sparrow
21. Savannah sparrow
22. Yellow warbler (voice)
23. American robin
24. Chipping sparrow (voice)
25. Tufted titmouse (voice)
26. Eastern phoebe (voice)
27. Hairy woodpecker
28. Hermit thrush (voice)
29. Eastern wood-pewee (voice)
30. Black-throated green warbler (voice)
Elsewhere
31. Northern cardinal
32. Herring gull
33. House sparrow
34. Laughing gull
Two islands.
Tags: alder flycatcher, American crow, American goldfinch, American redstart, American robin, barred owl, black-and-white warbler, black-capped chickadee, black-throated green warbler, Cedar waxwing, chestnut-sided warbler, chipping sparrow, common yellowthroat, eastern phoebe, eastern towhee, eastern wood-pewee, field sparrow, gray catbird, hairy woodpecker, hermit thrush, mourning dove, northern flicker, ovenbird, red-eyed vireo, savannah sparrow, song sparrow, tufted titmouse, veery, wood thrush, yellow warbler
