Date: 3/10/25 6:12 am From: Ted Levin <tedlevin1966...> Subject: [VTBIRD] 10 March 2025: Hurricane Hill (1,100 feet), WRJ
6:53 a.m. (eleven minutes before sunrise). Twenty-nine degrees, wind
West-southwest five miles per hour, gusting to thirteen. In the north,
congested and contused clouds hang above the New Hampshire ridgeline, a
blue-gray mess; in the east, infused with rose. Sky, clean and bright in
the southeast. Eventually, with the sun comes highlights.
Department of Forest Scraps: Hemlock and fir twigs decorate
micro-depressions in the woods, footprints, and gullies (widened by the
sun)—a scattering of green tinsel. Barred owl, biding its time in red
maple, sports a northern white cedar (arbor vitae) sprig on the lapel of
its breast, a token of a failed attack on a backyard red squirrel.
6:56 a.m.: white-breasted nuthatch calls
7:03 a.m.: titmouse and chickadees begin singing
7:04 a.m.: pileated woodpecker screams in the woods below my driveway.
Eight minutes later, across the road, uphill in the town forest, a second
pileated hammers a resonant tree. Then, the first pileated laughs again,
and the other drums. Over and over, loudly conversing in separate
languages. A couple? Who knows. Could be territorial competitors.
Red-bellied woodpecker calling. Hairy woodpecker drumming.
Crows in pairs head west, three sets. Raven, on the wing and playing,
barrel rolls below the brightening clouds.
Dark-eyed junco trills in the hemlocks. Mourning doves in squads, arrowing
across the meadow. A few gather in roadside maple and then bolt as I pass
underneath. Five male red-winged blackbirds (first of the year) cluck from
inside a fortress of stiff, curled rhododendron leaves, then flush and head
high across the hill ... just passing through. Cedar waxwings and bluebirds
are both first of the year. Bluebirds on the telephone line. Waxwings
whisper in the lilacs.
Above the owl, a brown creeper wanders up a yellow birch trunk, its long,
stiff tail braced against the tree and long, curved bill probing the base
of the peeling, paper-thin bark. The owl, eyes closed and sunbathing,
ignores the creeper.
