Cloud.
The temperature hung around in the 30s (F) today, but the sun kept things warm-seeming and lovely. A birdy morning at my place. While washing breakfast dishes, I looked out and saw a robin fly by. Then, out with Jack, singing: a titmouse, a house finch, house sparrows, a song sparrow, chickadees, an exceptionally vocal hairy woodpecker, and a single male cardinal emitting the sharp little tik! sound they make. And the coos of a mourning dove.
Sky over Beech Nut.
By early afternoon a jumble of big clouds moved over, and it began to spit snow. Then it stopped. Then, after a while, it spit snow again. In town were herring and ring-billed gulls—plenty of both. And people walking around wearing fewer clothes than they have been lately, despite a rather brisk wind.
Jack and I wound up at Beech hill about 4:30 for a fast hike up the open trail. The wind remained brisk, and the sky remained full of big crazy clouds. None but us up there. And crows. Two or three crows—calling to each other, strutting around on the fading snow, flapping back and forth among the low trees. The sun shone through giant dark clouds as it has the past couple days in late afternoon, spraying diffuse light over everything. Beech Hill, a photo op. The bay, scenic as a postcard.
It was a quick hike, We were up and down within a half-hour. Listening from the parking lot, I thought I heard a titmouse and a chickadee across the road in the distance—but I couldn’t be sure enough to add them to my list.
Back home I watched a golden-crowned kinglet flit madly through the small naked trees on the hill as if in a sped-up film, peeping constantly. Then, sometime after 7, I walked out onto the deck and heard the peent! of a woodcock. Not much more thrilling than that at this time of year, to me.
Chickawaukie Lake.
And just a minute ago, I stepped out again to see a fresh film of snow on the deck and a riot of stars in the night sky. And I heard the sudden sound of a small mammal shuffling through last fall’s leaves a dozen yards or so up the invisible hill. Skunk? Fox? Coon. I’ll never know.
Beech Hill List
Beginning at 4:30 p.m., I hiked the open trail.
1. American crow
Elsewhere
2. American robin
3. Tufted titmouse
4. House finch
5. Song sparrow
6. House sparrow
7. Black-capped chickadee
8. Hairy woodpecker
9. Northern cardinal
10. Mourning dove
11. Herring gull
12. Ring-billed gull
13. Golden-crowned kinglet
14. American woodcock
Birch.
Tags: American crow, American robin, American woodcock, black-capped chickadee, golden-crowned kinglet, hairy woodpecker, herring gull, house finch, house sparrow, mourning dove, northern cardinal, ring-billed gull, song sparrow, tufted titmouse
