Date: 5/9/26 2:39 pm From: Ted Levin <tedlevin1966...> Subject: [VTBIRD] 08 May 2026: Hurricane Hill (1,100 feet), WRJ
4:52 a.m., from deep in the hemlock shade, a hermit thrush duets with
himself forty minutes before sunrise. Moments later, as night draws to a
close, a barred owl, wings slightly bowed, glides silently over the meadow
and into the evergreens. Thirty-two degrees, wind south-southwest at three
miles per hour, gusting to five. Half moon in the west, bright for the
moment, already beginning to fade. Everywhere else in the heavens, a dull,
mottled blue-gray. The cold buttoned up last night's chorus of spring
peepers.
4:56 a.m., a loud, repetitive titmice, a chickadee, a pine warbler, and a
pair of robins (also dueting with themselves).
5:02 a.m., a shed-nesting phoebe clears his throat. Clears it again. A
minute later, a red-breasted nuthatch honks into the morning.
5:08 a.m., a bluebird on an electric line sings. And a porcupine, in no
particular hurry, waddles out of the hemlocks and across the road.
Then, eighteen minutes later, a yellow-bellied sapsucker drums, a soft,
stammering Morse code, as though he can't make up his mind—slow, fast,
slow, slower. A self-amused flicker laughs. Then, a pileated, laughs louder
and longer. (Nothing subtle about a pileated.)
On Hurricane Hill, juncos have been trilling all winter. Now they're joined
by chipping sparrows and pine warblers. Comparing the speed of all three
trills, the musicality (it's subtle: chipping sparrows sound mechanical
like an unimaginative iPhone; pine warblers *slightly* musical; juncos
somewhere in between). Comparing the three—it's elusive (to me)—is like
comparing the sound of bouncing balls. Is a Spalding more musical than a
Pensie pinkie, than a tennis ball? Fortunately, pine warblers sing in the
pines. Often high up. And chipping sparrows sing on the lawn. Juncos gum
things up ... they sing on the ground in the pines, on the lawns, lilacs
and gray birch, and just inside the woods where the evergreens meet
the road.
5:29 a.m., from the east side of Hurricane Hill, the voice of a wood thrush
floats over the summit.
Along the New Hampshire skyline, north of where I stand and south of Smarts
Mountain, a rose-pink bloom above Moose Mountain spreads northwest. Gives
fugitive clouds a touch of lavender.
*The kismet of sunrise:* climbing above Moose Mountain, relaxes the clouds,
which dissolve as I watch, then kindles an enthusiastic chorus—warblers
(black and white, black-throated green, ovenbird, chestnut-sided, northern
yellow, common yellowthroat); eastern towhee; eastern wood pewee; gray
catbird; northern house wren; brown-headed cowbird; two red-breasted
grosbeaks (in the same sapling, singing); mourning dove; white-breasted
nuthatches; blue jays; song and white-throated and swamp sparrows; a raven;
several crows, one of whom collects spilled sunflower seeds from below my
deck; and mourning doves. A broad-winged hawk in a black cherry ... waiting.
A cardinal facing the sun, breast on fire, glows as it sings.
