Blue Hole
Another manic Monday. Half an inch of fluff but at 29 the ground didn’t freeze. Looks like fast clouds from the west and a potential for blue; the air is Canada-clear again. I used to think windy days weren’t good for birds but I think that’s later. At dawn, wind seems to kick the raptors up; it’s what’s brought the Peregrines and Merlins hunting over Tyrone. Today, we’ll see.
The breeze has moved the Common Ravens around. Familiar croaking from the old tannery by 7:14, but I never see it, then 10 minutes later, one comes from behind, and heads toward one of its downtown perches, out of sight. At one point I had access to a higher vantage point, and discovered the raven perching every morning on top of the town’s tallest edifice, a sore-thumb apartment building for the elderly, across from the post office. (Thankfully, I don’t buy into any of that Hollywood evil-Corvid-omen nonsense. It’d almost as pernicious as the eagle-hawk screech.)
We’re at 1+1 robins. The singer is still at it, but the American Robin commute today was down to a single one, up with the wind clouds and east. I still haven’t gotten into our ridge-side grape tangles to see how many there are left in Plummer’s Hollow, but I’m guessing not more than a dozen. This one was heading that way.
At 7:32, a blue window opens, with orange fringes behind, and the Common Ravens climb up into it, on the downslope of Bald Eagle Mountain toward the river. They’re wide apart today but I presume the same pair I see constantly. At 7:43, three American Crows commuting high over the towers: it’s been over a month since they came regularly through town at dawn. In the late Fall, I could set my watch by their morning flight from west to east over the northern end of Brush Mountain, a dozen or more, but now, some days, I don’t glimpse them at all. The pattern is always changing.
Same goes for the lone Canada Goose, nowhere to be seen today. Indeed, it’s looking like only the nine core species this morning, but then, some 40 Common Grackles and about four Brown-headed Cowbirds (PH200#52) fly over, west to east, disappearing into the Gap. The cowbirds are new for January, and I’m glad to see some grackles are still around. I suspect the big flock I saw the other day is hanging out in the Bald Eagle-Bellwood corridor somewhere, maybe to last the winter.
At 7:48, the reward: an adult Bald Eagle, first I’ve seen since mid-December, low over my head from the west, but instead of flying downstream into the Gap like the immature has been doing, this one heads off north toward Bald Eagle Mountain. At first, it seems like the eagle has better things to do, but catching the winds off the ridge crest on the mountain’s descent from the towers to the river it begins to circle upward, into the expanding blue patch the ravens vacated.
The Downy Woodpecker calls at 7:52, the last regular, putting the daily tally at a respectable 13 species, and I’m off to an 8 o’clock. The Bald Eagle is still wheeling, large deep spirals, disappearing as the blue looks to win the morning.