North American porcupine (juvenile).
Another soggy sort of day. Rose early but didn’t feel like another soggy Beech Hill hike right away (my fingertips felt it last evening), so dog and I held off once again. Not rainy, exactly, but overcast and still wet from yesterday. The usual finches, sparrows, phoebes, and crows about. Also heard the resident cardinal singing.
Had a productive day of work. Not many interruptions (odd for a Monday), so I worked clear through. After work, Jack was ready for some exercise.
The Rockville Street parking lot was empty when we arrived. A vireo was singing. Through the dripping woodland, I heard the note of a veery and the voice of a goldfinch in overflight. Then, in quick succession, a chestnut-sided warbler, a couple chickadees, a wood-pewee, and an alder flycatcher. Things were looking fruitful—although I hadn’t yet actually seen any bird.
Eastern towhee.
Coming up the first little winding slope, though, I did see something: a small black animal in the trail. I brought Jack (who was of course interested) to a halt. It was a juvenile porcupine. Right in the middle of the trail. Worse, this was a curvy, rising section of trail that was not easy to circumnavigate. So we stood and watched a while. The little guy looked like he would climb away up a brush edge—but as he sought purchase, he tipped over rather comically and did the backstroke for a moment. Then it started slowly, walking like a toddler, up ahead along the trail.
It took a while. Jack really wanted a piece of the little porcupine, and I had a challenge holding him back, but we had to wait until it rounded another couple of curves (and tumped over twice more) before we could crash through a short-cut and emerge up ahead of it. Not sure Jack was entirely happy about that.
Heard a few more birds before I saw one: a towhee (same bird I heard singing a couple days ago, with an odd, chirpy first note) singing on an open branch. The usual species up at the fields. And we met four photographers at Beech Nut, which I figure would keep us from spotting a phoebe or savannah sparrow. (It did.) Then we descended the lower trail, where I saw the second and third birds of our hike—a trailside robin and an ovenbird poking around in one of the old rockpiles down there.
Eighteen bird species total today, three species seen.
And one baby porcupine.
Addendum: at 11:30 p.m., with the moon and a few stars visible beyond the cloud-cover, I heard a mourning dove call three times off across the road somewhere.
Beech Hill List
Beginning at 5:30 p.m., I hiked the wooded trails.
1. Red-eyed vireo (voice)
2. Veery (voice)
3. American goldfinch (voice)
4. Chestnut-sided warbler (voice)
5. Black-capped chickadee (voice)
6. Eastern wood-pewee (voice)
7. Alder flycatcher (voice)
8. Herring gull (voice)
9. Rose-breasted grosbeak (voice)
10. Ovenbird
11. Eastern towhee
12. Song sparrow (voice)
13. Gray catbird (voice)
14. American crow (voice)
15. American robin
16. Common yellowthroat (voice)
17. Yellow warbler (voice)
18. Cedar waxwing (voice)
Elsewhere
19. House finch
20. House sparrow
21. Eastern phoebe
22. Mourning dove
23. Northern cardinal
24. American redstart
Tags: alder flycatcher, American crow, American goldfinch, American redstart, American robin, black-capped chickadee, Cedar waxwing, chestnut-sided warbler, common yellowthroat, eastern phoebe, eastern towhee, eastern wood-pewee, gray catbird, herring gull, house finch, house sparrow, mourning dove, northern cardinal, ovenbird, red-eyed vireo, rose-breasted grosbeak, song sparrow, veery, yellow warbler
