Eastern phoebe.
Cooler this morning. A little hazy, a little breezy. As the day progressed, the wind got a little stronger. It came from the south.
The usual vocal bird species singing around my place—house finch and house sparrow, mainly. Late in the day, when I finally wheeled out my bicycle, the wind was blowing pretty steadily. This made half the trip a challenge and the other half a hoot. Robins, song sparrows, chipping sparrows, gulls. Not a lot of warblers singing, though.
As the sun headed down, Jack and I headed up—to Beech Hill, as usual. En route, I saw a turkey vulture rise from a roadside field.
What with my busted new camera, I brought my old one with us today. Not a lot to take pictures of, other than the photogenic phoebe with a nest in the eaves of Beech Nut. At one point it perched cooperatively on a sign post. Several birds sang, but they weren’t singing much. A stout breeze was rustling the leaves of poplars. My most interesting sighting today was a solitary laughing gull winging above the southeastern field. Other than the towhees, the birds I heard would sing just once or twice. Maybe.
Oddly, the first I heard singing was a hermit thrush, at the parking lot. The last I heard was a veery, returning. The thrushes changed places—hadn’t heard a hermit thrush in several days, but veeries have been regulars. It surprised me only to hear that one individual of the latter species. No ovenbirds. No savannah sparrow. No yellow warbler.
As we neared the parking lot on our way back down, as I listened to the breeze in the trees, Jack caught the scent of something and got excited. Whatever it was had traveled on the trail. He pulled, and his hackles raised slightly. Knowing a bear had been sighted up there a couple weeks ago, I started to wonder. Or could it have been a porcupine. We hurried along—but I kept dog back just a bit. Finally, I thought I smelled the faint aroma of skunk. Maybe that’s what he’d detected a few minutes before.
The deer flies weren’t so bad today for a change—although they still buzzed like crazy when the wind would briefly let up. Thankfully, it didn’t let up much. Anyway, I like the sound of the wind in the poplars.
Beech Hill List
Beginning at 5:45 p.m., I hiked the wooded trails.
1. Hermit thrush (voice)
2. Red-eyed vireo (voice)
3. American goldfinch
4. Eastern towhee
5. Gray catbird
6. Black-capped chickadee (voice)
7. Cedar waxwing
8. Alder flycatcher (voice)
9. American crow
10. Laughing gull
11. Song sparrow (voice)
12. Eastern phoebe
13. Common yellowthroat
14. American robin
15. Chestnut-sided warbler (voice)
16. Veery (voice)
Elsewhere
17. House finch
18. House sparrow
19. Herring gull
20. Chipping sparrow
21. Turkey vulture
22. Northern cardinal
Tags: alder flycatcher, American crow, American goldfinch, American robin, black-capped chickadee, Cedar waxwing, chestnut-sided warbler, chipping sparrow, common yellowthroat, eastern phoebe, eastern towhee, gray catbird, hermit thrush, herring gull, house finch, house sparrow, laughing gull, northern cardinal, red-eyed vireo, song sparrow, veery
