American robin.
Avid birders enjoy the chase. They rise early, travel far, and spend plenty of money just to get a peek at a rare species, experience a migratory “fallout,” or view a crazy wayward vagrant through a high-priced spotting scope. Birding is our fastest-growing recreational pastime, I hear, pumping tens of billions of dollars into the economy. More like an obsession than a pastime, if you ask me. Anything to add a new bird to some list—the trip list, the big-day list, the life list. And of course I share the thrill of a particularly unusual sighting, an unexpectedly beautiful little feathered surprise.
American crow.
Because much of that thrill has to do with timing, of having to be in just the right place at just the right moment or else miss that elusive, transitory creature with wings. More often than not, in fact, I’ve missed seeing that first state record bird, have “dipped” on spotting a snowy owl during the rare irruption year. But just one sighting—that rufous hummingbird at a friend’s backyard feeder, that black vulture I watched soar over Beech Hill—will make up for all the misses. And the memory tends to grow in the retelling.
On the other hand, there’s a lot to be said about the same old same old—the common, familiar, dependable backyard birds. With familiarity comes insight, comfort, even intimacy. You can really get to know a robin or a chickadee around here.
I came across only familiar birds while out and about today. The neighborhood crows whose language I think I’m beginning to decipher. The dooryard robins—their tut-tut!, their pause and tip-of-the-head while hunting worms. I know the calls of our resident chickadees so well that I can easily tell their dialect from the huskier voices of the remote island population on Monhegan. I can hear the difference in the individual songs of the local house finches and song sparrows.
I’d never heard the song of a northern shrike before a few weeks ago, when I stumbled across a late migrant singing at Beech Hill. I had no idea what I was listening to until I spotted the bird. (I’ve seen a few.) And I wouldn’t know the call of a meadowlark if one snuck up behind me and let loose. We don’t get very many of those around here.
But I know the croak of a raven and the baby-like cry a juvenile makes in late summer. I can tell the silhouette of a harrier or an osprey in dim light from a distance. And that crazy peeping-whistling sound in the night sky a minute ago? An American woodcock, plain as can be.
I don’t much engage in pursuit the way I used to. But the peent! of a woodcock in spring might as well be a lullaby.
Beech Hill List
Beginning at 5:15 p.m., I hiked the wooded trails.
1. American crow
2. Herring gull (voice)
3. Black-capped chickadee (voice)
4. American robin
Elsewhere
5. Northern cardinal
6. Tufted titmouse
7. House finch
8. Ring-billed gull
9. Mourning dove
10. American woodcock
Tags: American crow, American robin, American woodcock, black-capped chickadee, herring gull, house finch, mourning dove, northern cardinal, ring-billed gull, tufted titmouse
