Savannah sparrow.
Rain this morning. Rain all day.
Crows about. House finch singing. Out back, the phoebes and nuthatches both actively tending their nests.
By late in the afternoon, it was time to abandon my rainy-day desk work and awaken my napping dog. We set off in a steady drizzle for Beech Hill.
Daisies.
No evidence of any moving creature at the trailhead—just soaking drops of water falling from the canopy in jumbled flurries of breeze. Before we’d gone a hundred yards, Jack and I were pretty wet already. Finally, just after crossing the brook, I heard a little family of chickadees. Besides being the first evidence of animate life up there, what made them noteworthy was an odd effect of their songs: two of the birds were singing the species’ musical fee-bee! mating song, but at different pitches. One sang jeepers! and the other creepers! And more than once the second note of the first’s song came atop the same-pitched first note of the second’s, which made it sound like they were singing “Three Blind Mice.”
Mainly, I was pleased to have added at least one bird to my Beech Hill list.
But before too long, I also heard the voice of a chestnut-sided warbler. Then a red-eyed vireo’s. A towhee’s note. And—surprisingly, to me—the call of an alder flycatcher. Farther up, a mourning dove and a robin were singing. Coming through the upper fields, where wet trailside grasses soaked my pants legs through, I happened to spot a catbird flitting low between hedgerows.
At the summit, I heard two song sparrows conversing, one near and one far. Saw a savannah sparrow flitting about Beech Nut and a phoebe flying away. In the distance down the eastern slope, I heard the loud call of an ovenbird.
Returning through the lower woods, a yellowthroat sang exactly twice. I heard the quay! note of a hermit thrush. Also the thin cries of a waxwing.
Daisy.
And aside from bright wet green leaves and dewy daisies, that’s about all I can say about this particular rainy day.
Beech Hill List
Beginning at 4 p.m., I hiked the wooded trails.
1. Black-capped chickadee
2. Chestnut-sided warbler (voice)
3. Red-eyed vireo (voice)
4. Eastern towhee (voice)
5. Alder flycatcher (voice)
6. American robin (voice)
7. Mourning dove (voice)
8. Gray catbird
9. Song sparrow
10. Savannah sparrow
11. Eastern phoebe
12. Ovenbird (voice)
13. Common yellowthroat (voice)
14. Hermit thrush (voice)
15. Cedar waxwing (voice)
Elsewhere
16. House finch
17. American crow
18. White-breasted nuthatch
19. Herring gull
Tags: alder flycatcher, American crow, American robin, black-capped chickadee, Cedar waxwing, chestnut-sided warbler, common yellowthroat, eastern phoebe, eastern towhee, gray catbird, hermit thrush, herring gull, house finch, mourning dove, ovenbird, red-eyed vireo, savannah sparrow, song sparrow, white-breasted nuthatch
