August 2, 2026

Where: Huntley Meadows Park

When: 12:25 pm

Bird Species: blue-gray gnatcatcher, ruby-throated hummingbird, great egret, barn swallow, Canada goose, red-winged blackbird

Things I Thought About:

• It's going to rain in about an hour, but I can't be this close to Huntley without making at least one quick loop. It will probably be too dark for photos, but I have my camera and my big umbrella with me, so I'm sure I'll get something.
• Then again, it was turned awfully dark awfully quick. I can see the shapes of birds, but nothing distinguishing except silhouette. Fine for me, terrible for content.
• There was a little quiz I saw on instagram a couple of years ago that was the silhouettes of all seven local woodpeckers and I remember being so proud of getting them all. I can do a lot more, now.
• An enormous crash and roll of thunder, and distant lightning. It occurs to me that I am the only person out here, and also that I am the tallest thing on this boardwalk. This is probably fine, right?
• Sometimes I have no idea whether I'm being completely idiotic.
• Welp.
• That answers that question.

BOTD: Ruby-throated hummingbird, because it's the only photo where the average person who comes in off the street can tell what kind of bird it is. A pair of them were messing around in a tree near the start of the boardwalk, before I got really interested in checking the horizon for weather.

It poured. I got absolutely drowned. Well, I mean my body stayed mostly dry under the umbrella, but the only thing I could think about was trying to avoid washouts and gulleys on the trail, of which I stumbled through half a dozen, and trying to keep the camera mostly dry. The walk back from the boardwalk to my car was miserable, and I was in a state of such extreme aggravation, trying to wrestle open the car door, keep the camera out of the rain, and collapse that big golf umbrella without getting myself or my car soaked, which I did not manage to do, that I decided right then I was staying home for the rest of the day.

I do love Huntley in a rain, though. If I had just put on beater shoes and a raincoat and left my camera in the car, I would have ridden it out in the woods, probably.