bike ride after work
Arlington’s Great Meadows:
- bulbous buttercup (Ranunculus bulbosus) (buttercup family) - The sepals were bent back against the stem. This was on the Minuteman trail, a ways before AGM.
- brown thrasher (Toxostoma rufum) (mimidae) - Heard this one first. I was pretty sure of the sound, even though there were a lot of catbirds around making things confusing. Eventually it flew across the clearing I was in. It was pretty big, and very brown. I thought of it as “between a blue jay and a crow” in size.
- northern flicker (Colaptes auratus) (picidae) - I flushed this one from the path when I came over a hill (apparently they eat ants in openings). It flew up into a tree, and I was able to inch closer. It wasn’t until I heard it sing that I figured out what it was.
- american woodcock (Scolopax minor) (scolopacidae) - I flushed one while I was sneaking up on the flicker. Its beak was ridiculously long and its body gourdlike, and it flew clumsily, like a bumblebee. Two more flew away fifteen seconds later or so.