Mourning doves.
This morning was much like yesterday morning at Beech Hill: cool, dry, sunny, silent. The silence, though, seemed somehow deeper—as if some giant had dropped a magic cloak over the world. Birds were flitting, but subtly, not making much sound. There was little breeze (less than yesterday). Even the traffic noise down on South Street (or beyond, on Route 17) seemed muffled, distant, insignificant.
Cedar waxwing.
The only bird of note coming up the wooded trail was a lone cedar waxwing calling from a treetop. I’m not sure I’d ever before actually seen a waxwing emitting its impossibly high-pitched tseee! Seems it just opens its beak and lets fly.
Ascending the last stretch before the summit, I heard a black-billed cuckoo, but it wasn’t giving its typical song—more its single-note call. And I heard the chip notes of song and white-throated sparrows. I heard no mourning doves but happened to spot a pair snuggled against each other on a sheltered limb beneath the spruces. I heard no phoebes but happened to catch sight of one at the porch of Beech Nut. I heard no field sparrows but happened to see one at a wood-edge coming down toward Beech Hill Road.
Oddly, I neither saw nor heard a towhee until Jack and I had nearly hiked the whole hill. I finally heard one bird’s alarm note. No song. No sighting. Just an alarm note.
Black-throated green warbler (first-year female).
Perhaps the most fun bird was a female black-throated green warbler that popped magically into view near the Beech Hill Road parking lot. I watched a while as it hunted in the lower limbs of some young hardwoods there. Soon after, as we came around the bark-strewn curves at the trailhead, a woodcock burst into flight right in front of us. (Had I thought to stop and look around, I might’ve had a miraculous photo.)
I heard no mysteriously fluting hermit thrushes—but I caught the sound of a chip note. Didn’t even run into any other humans (or dogs) up there this morning.
Just a very quiet, low-key, secretive sort of day. (Although I did hear the song of a yellow warbler.)
Tonight about 11 I took Jack out to pee and looked up at the moonless sky and the scanned stars, picked out a planet or two, and got to see one long quick meteor from the Perseid shower.
Southwest landscape.
Beech Hill List
Beginning at 7 a.m., I hiked all trails.
1. Red-eyed vireo (voice)
2. Black-capped chickadee (voice)
3. Cedar waxwing
4. Tufted titmouse (voice)
5. American goldfinch
6. American crow (voice)
7. Gray catbird
8. Black-and-white warbler (voice)
9. Common yellowthroat
10. Black-billed cuckoo (voice)
11. Song sparrow (voice)
12. White-throated sparrow (voice)
13. Eastern phoebe
14. Mourning dove
15. Savannah sparrow
16. Eastern towhee (voice)
17. Blue jay
18. Field sparrow
19. American robin
20. Black-throated green warbler
21. American woodcock
22. Eastern wood-pewee (voice)
23. Hermit thrush (voice)
24. Yellow warbler (voice)
Elsewhere
25. Herring gull
26. Northern cardinal
Two islands.
Tags: American crow, American goldfinch, American robin, American woodcock, black-and-white warbler, black-billed cuckoo, black-capped chickadee, black-throated green warbler, blue jay, Cedar waxwing, common yellowthroat, eastern phoebe, eastern towhee, eastern wood-pewee, field sparrow, gray catbird, hermit thrush, herring gull, mourning dove, northern cardinal, red-eyed vireo, savannah sparrow, song sparrow, tufted titmouse, white-throated sparrow, yellow warbler
