Day 61: Jay?!

Franklin Park, Dorchester/JP, MA, 6:50am-8:10am
cool, thick low clouds

The sky reminded me of lava this morning: the clouds crusty plates of cooled lava, breaking up to reveal jagged crevices of molten lava light.

It was an eventful morning at Franklin Park: a double sun-rise (Red in a small opening at the horizon, then White and dangerously-bright as it emerged from a second, cloud horizon); two red-tailed hawk sightings; a goose fight; and a goose swarm (at least 150 geese lifting off from the Club House and wheeling over the golf course).

Of these, the goose fight was the most dispiriting: two geese barreling head-first at each other, the mob squawking enthusiastically. I told them to cut it out, but I guess it's their nature. Animals.

It was a good bird day on the hill: I spotted a redheaded tree-clinging bird I'd never seen before, who says this when he flies:


But the Bird of the Day goes to the bird who, it turns out, makes ALL of the following sounds:
the dry trill

the "glass whistle" call I've heard before

call-and-response with buddy down the hill

and then, the identity revealed...


Can you believe it?? Turns out jays are right up there with squirrels (perhaps superseding them) in sonic ubiquity and variety. What I thought were three or four distinct birds turns out to be the one and the same, ingenious Jay!