August 23, 2026

Where: Family game night, Springfield, VA

When: 5:15 pm

Bird Species: house sparrow, mourning dove, northern mockingbird

Things I Thought About:

• It has been absolutely beautiful today and I have gone on zero walks.
• I sat in the rocker on my porch and scrolled and read my book and at one point I dozed for 40 minutes. I did fuck all about errands or chores.
• I will regret not making it out to Huntley this weekend, but I do think it's probably smart to have driven my car as little as possible until I can get the repairs taken care of tomorrow.
• For one thing, there's this wildly conspicuous sticker that makes me feel like both a loser and menace to be driving around with it.

• Also, my rear brakes appear to be a real safety concern. I would be embarrassed to die behind the wheel of a car with that sticker on it.
• I didn't get serious about finding the bird of the day until quite late in the afternoon. I stopped by Accotink, which is close to the other aunt's house, and the only birds I saw were two fat Canada goose sleeping on the dock.
• I decide to just head on to family game night and see what's up in Jane's backyard tonight. It used to be chock-a-block with birds, but then she acquired two kittens who get some outdoor time, and the birds are a bit more circumspect than they used to be.
• I steal two photos of the niece with the good camera. Later I'll share them in the game night group chat, "Uno Players," where she will loudly hate them while the rest of the family is completely gobsmacked by how pretty and grown-up she is, starting eighth grade tomorrow.

BOTD: Northern mockingbird. I kept hearing a young bird call, just a little squeak, it could have been anybody. I track it down in the yard and finally found an immature mockingbird, in a tree safely out of reach of the kittens. I frame up for a photo, and hear the call again, but it isn't the bird I'm looking at. It's coming from almost the exact same spot though, so I take a few step to the left, then to the right, trying to find the bird I'm hearing. I make a little a "humph" sound of exasperation, and that sends the mockingbird fluttering away, revealing, drumroll please, a damn near identical sub-adult mockingbird.

It was hilarious. I'll concede that you kind of had to be there.