August 1, 2026

Rabbit Rabbit

Where: Danbury Park Trail into Lake Accotink Park

When: 12:05 pm

Bird Species: eastern wood pewee, fish crow, pileated woodpecker, red-bellied woodpecker, Carolina chickadee, Acadian flycatcher, downy woodpecker

Things I Thought About:

• It is my intention to have a very lazy weekend, so I'm not really going anywhere to bird. This is a neighborhood that I pass on my way to run most errands, and it know it connects up with the Accotink trails, but I've never hopped on from this side.
• Is cutting trails through nice old woods a job? Should I get a bobcat license?
• A pileated woodpecker flies by within 30 feet or so, scaring me half to death. They are large birds!!

• I had been thinking earlier this week that I hadn't been seeing too many woodpeckers in the neighborhood, but that must be because they are all over here. I can hear a lot of drumming, but it is very shady and the foliage is full.
• Why do mosquitoes love that big meaty part of your arm, right above the elbow in the back? The part I always manage to miss with the OFF.
• AfterBite has such a specific scent, I can never quite pin it down. It's medicinal, but not quite. It smells metallic?
• It occurs to me that I have no idea where I am right now. I know that this is, in general, somewhere in West Springfield, between Braddock and Franconia. I know the trail I started on crosses over the Accotink Loop, the one that leads to the marina, but it has crossed over a few trails, and I don't know which one was the Loop. I haven't seen any people since I got in here. It is breezy and green and cool and so quiet.
• This is great. Not Lost, I Just Don't Know Where I Am is the best physical place to be when you don't have anything else to do that day.
• Not that there aren't things I could do. I need to clean, I need to grocery shop, I need to get my car inspection and renew my registration now that it's August. I have to pick up a prescription today. I need to put away the clothes I brough home from the Wash and Fold two Saturdays ago and just set down in the chair in my bedroom. I want to watch Scream 7 this weekend.
• I want to stand here in the bugs and the breeze and watch this family of three downy woodpeckers fuck around among all these dead snags.

• Interesting. I have encountered a massive fence, surrounding a massive utility field of some variety. Power station? Maybe a freight yard. In a hundred years I would not have guessed something like this was back here.
• This is where all the birds are, naturally, here on the edge of a big empty space. I can't follow them, though, and this fence has the look of a place where I could only skirt the edge of it for so long before someone showed up in an ATV to see what the fuck I'm doing.

• It occurs to me that I'm getting good at flycatchers. I never saw them last year, and I'm sure they were everywhere, but last year I hardly ever walked into the deeply wooded parts of the county, and when I was outside, I was just noticing the usual suspects.
• Now I can almost always tell a phoebe from a pewee from an Acadian, even though they all look vaguely alike, and the great crested from the Acadian flycatcher by sound, even though they both have one-note calls. I love these moments where the ROI for "go see what birds you can see every single day" is made clear.
• Maybe I'll get good at warblers, if I find the right place in the spring and fall to visit every day.

BOTD: Acadian flycatcher. I was sure it was going to be the downys; they were working so hard and they were so fun to watch. Also, they are a family, and there has been a bit of a theme for that this week, adults with their nearly grown kids.

But then I heard the Acadian, which I have described before as being such a fun bird to track down, and not only did I find him in a very clear view, and could frame up that very nice shot up top, but he did a full 360 turn so I could see his nice arm bars.

Then he did the most obliging thing in the world, which was jump off the branch, grab a butterfly, and jump right back on the branch to eat it. I didn't have to move or refocus at all. Bird of the Day shit, for sure.