Chestnut-sided warbler.
Like most kids, I was fascinated by the natural world around me. Early on, in Central Texas, I’d catch horned toads, watch tadpoles, fish for crawfish with bacon on a string. But not until I moved to the piedmont of North Carolina at age nine did I have real woods to explore. Piney woods. I spent hours and hours walking alone through the little forest behind our house, a place of filtered sunlight and deep shadow, and marveled at the solemn feel of things there. I remember a particular double-pine tree near the trail I took. I named it “Twin Angels.”
Over the past few decades I’ve had the good fortune of long quiet trails up and around the wooded hills of the central coast of Maine. These are mixed woodlands—not the piney woods of North Carolina or the great spruce-fir forests of northern part of my state—but they have all I could ever ask for. Ferns and fungi, frogs and porcupines, grouse and wood-pewee. I’ve seen moose and deer and coyote.
Beech Nut.
Large mammals are inspiring and all, but I’m just as enthralled with the peace and quiet of the woods on any given day, in any season. There’s so much going on. So much to see and hear. So much to observe.
Today while hiking through the familiar woods of Beech Hill, I got to thinking—if I knew I would die suddenly in an hour or two, there wouldn’t be any place I’d rather be.
It was a relatively cool, mostly sunny day. For some reason I got the feeling that the birds are a little more vocal than they’ve been in recent days. About my place I heard house finch, house sparrow, song sparrow, cardinal, crow, yellow warbler, redstart, phoebe. During my bike ride I heard chipping sparrow, yellow warbler, cardinal, song sparrow, crow. And hiking Beech Hill this evening, my species total exceeded twenty for a change—including three catbirds mewing and chasing and, at the end of it, a young raven sounding like a human baby away through the trees.
This evening at 8:30 (I looked at the clock), I heard a phoebe singing up the hill out back and imagined it was one of the parents of the family from my back window.
Across the road, at about the same time, I heard a catbird sing.
Beech Hill List
Beginning at 5:30 p.m., I hiked the wooded trails.
1. Red-eyed video (voice)
2. Chestnut-sided warbler
3. American redstart (voice)
4. Veery
5. Ovenbird (voice)
6. Eastern towhee (voice)
7. Black-capped chickadee
8. Mourning dove
9. American goldfinch (voice)
10. Common yellowthroat
11. Black-and-white warbler
12. Song sparrow
13. Gray catbird
14. American crow (voice)
15. Eastern phoebe
16. Yellow warbler (voice)
17. Field sparrow (voice)
18. Hermit thrush (voice)
19. Northern parula (voice)
20. Eastern wood-pewee (voice)
21. Common raven (voice)
Elsewhere
22. House finch
23. Northern cardinal
24. House finch
25. Herring gull
26. Chipping sparrow
Tags: American crow, American goldfinch, American redstart, black-and-white warbler, black-capped chickadee, chestnut-sided warbler, chipping sparrow, common raven, common yellowthroat, eastern phoebe, eastern towhee, eastern wood-pewee, field sparrow, gray catbird, hermit thrush, herring gull, house finch, mourning dove, northern cardinal, northern parula, ovenbird, red-eyed vireo, song sparrow, veery, yellow warbler
