April 15, 2026

Where: Eakin Community Park

When: 5:35pm

Bird Species: northern cardinal, blue jay, white-throated sparrow, eastern bluebird, tufted titmouse, American robin, house sparrow, American goldfinch, red-bellied woodpecker, hermit thrush, eastern towhee

Things I Thought About:

• I went to bed last night so mad at H&R Block I could spit, and absolutely sick that I annually give a long-term interest free loan to subsidize my country's war crimes. I can't imagine what it would feel like to actually owe right now.
• There are two blue jays yelling at each other one short syllable at a time, and the pitches are the exact interval off to make them sound like an old-timey squeeze-bulb kind of horn, or a clown's nose being pressed.
• I was one hundred percent caught running a little and scoping out the woods like a little kid playing explorer. A girl asks if I saw a deer. "No, a hermit thrush." They aren't rare but they are shy; it's always good to see one. I lost him completely, though, being sociable on the trail.
• I took a photo of this part of the trail awhile back and stuffed it in a folder; I thought the bird blog readers might be interested in some of these places I go and the difference in birding there depending on the time of year. Then I decided that was a lot like real work, a content plan that a creator might devise for a year-long strategy, whereas I am just a random person who wants to force people to look at my photos and read my diary. This is the only park where I have exemplars to compare, but I think you can see why there are going to be fewer and fewer nice, clear shots for a while.

• Look at all that luscious green, though.
• Up by the tennis courts, I see a flock of 8 or 10 goldfinch in flight, unmistakably bright and yellow against a clear blue sky, and rush up to see if they're going to land for a bit. Incredibly they do, at the very top of a tree, and they spent about five minutes there. I am mumbling the whole time, "Yes, come down, yes, come down here, yes, I want to, yes, I see you." It's very tent revival-coded, a sort of involuntary chant. I sound like an idiot, even to myself, but this is exciting. There are a lot of them, and that is always fun to watch.
• Now that I'm looking at that typed out in my notes app, it's also very James Joyce-coded. Not that I've read Ulysses, because no one has. The only man who ever defeated me.
• Well, I will be damned. There's the thrush. This is a good evening.

• I said "DQ chocolate dipped cone" in the group chat today so that's going to be a problem until I have one.

BOTD: American goldfinch. A very pretty little bird, who does not like to come down very low in the trees, but can reliably be found in groups, munching in the treetops. There is a big tree (I do not know the names of trees, a mulberry, maybe?) that grows at the top of this park in the community garden, and one day two years ago I walked up there and the whole thing was covered in goldfinches; they looked like lemons. Even the small flock tonight was startling in it's brightness and contrast.

They have very short bills, imo, compared to other birds I see. Shorter than the house finches, I believe. I like the black face marking the breeding males get as they grow up.