Veery.
Ack! Slept late. Up and dressed in a hurry, to Beech Hill by 7:45 a.m. Hazy sun, warm and muggy still, with just a taste of strangeness in the breeze—strangeness, perhaps, because Hurricane Earl is on the way? Who knows. But chickadees were chatting and chittering in the distance, so I had hopes of seeing a few silent bird species chowing down before the storm. Because they must know change is coming. If only fall migration.
Chestnut-sided warbler (juvenile).
After our first few hundred paces, Jack’s and mine, we’d counted some typical species, then stopped in a sunny part of the trail when I heard an unfamiliar chip! call from the undergrowth. I never did see the source of the chip!, but I did spot a young chestnut-sided warbler that zipped up into a tree in front of us. They sure are fast flyers—or sure can be.
Soon after, I heard another chip! This one sounded sort of like a white-throat, but a little different. We stopped again, and again another bird flitted silently up near us—a red-eyed vireo this time, and a great photo-op, but I passed it up, silly me. Instead, I got a ghostly shot of what was sure enough a white-throated sparrow peeping at us from beyond a thicket of old summer leaves.
Northern harrier.
Entering the open fields, I scanned the distance, as I always do. A golden haze hung in the east over the bay. And there not far off, a marsh hawk—a northern harrier—dipped and veered over a grassy slope, its white rump flashing.
Before long, reaching the summit, I was watching another hawk—a sparrow hawk, a kestrel—flapping up and over Beech Nut. It soon disappeared, but then looking out to sea again, again I spotted the harrier (or another one) dipping and hovering over the same far eastern field.
White-throated sparrow.
Although most birds I listed today were silent, toward Beech Hill Road I heard the distinctive alarm notes of a rose-breasted grosbeak and a northern cardinal. Marauding bands of chickadees were sweeping through that area also—but nothing else too interesting showed up. In fact, it took until we’d already crested the summit again and plunged into the trees for the next bird to pop up. Also silent. Flitted up into a twig very near the trail. We froze, it froze. At first I thought it an ovenbird, but I quickly saw it was a thrush. Specifically, a veery. I bet we watched each other for a good three minutes, if not more.
Nothing but a single vireo down the lower wooded trail—quite the contrast to yesterday—until we made the turn onto the last leg before the parking lot. I thought I caught sight of another silent, mouse-like bird jumping off the trail and into the brush. We stopped. Waited. A small movement. Sure enough, a quiet little bird. An ovenbird, ironically. When it moved, it seemed so subtle as hardly to influence the universe at all.
But I got a ghostly photo.
Ovenbird.
Beech Hill List
Beginning at 7:45 a.m., I hiked all trails.
1. Black-capped chickadee
2. Common yellowthroat
3. Gray catbird
4. Black-billed cuckoo (voice)
5. Eastern towhee (voice)
6. Blue jay (voice)
7. American robin (voice)
8. Chestnut-sided warbler
9. Cedar waxwing
10. White-throated sparrow
11. Red-eyed vireo
12. Northern harrier
13. Song sparrow
14. Kestrel
15. American crow (voice)
16. American goldfinch (voice)
17. Common raven (voice)
18. Rose-breasted grosbeak (voice)
19. Northern cardinal (voice)
20. Mourning dove
21. Veery
22. Ovenbird
Elsewhere
23. Herring gull
24. Tufted titmouse
25. Rock pigeon
The bay.
Tags: American crow, American goldfinch, American robin, black-billed cuckoo, black-capped chickadee, blue jay, Cedar waxwing, chestnut-sided warbler, common raven, common yellowthroat, eastern towhee, gray catbird, herring gull, mourning dove, northern cardinal, northern harrier, ovenbird, red-eyed vireo, rock pigeon, rose-breasted grosbeak, song sparrow, tufted titmouse, veery, white-throated sparrow
