August 21, 2026

Where: Hidden Oaks Nature Center

When: 2:40 pm

Bird Species: American crow, white-breasted nuthatch, Carolina wren, tufted titmouse, house finch, downy woodpecker, Carolina chickadee, common grackle, northern cardinal

Things I Thought About:

• Anne Hathaway is going to work until the day she drops and she's going to make good choices the whole time. One of the best we've ever had.
• I enjoyed The End of Oak Street. Men should dress like that.
• The niece was critical of how many dinosaurs this family allowed to sneak up on them.
• It has been so long since I have had both time and good conditions for a bird walk, I think I have forgotten how the camera works.
• It is only 81 degrees and only 49% humidity in the middle of the day. I have cursed us to three weeks of 90 plus by saying this.
• What a beautiful lady finch.

• I think this is the buggiest park in Fairfax County. Every time I come here I'm itching in minutes.
• Nuthatches are such cute and busy little birds. Every other bird I see, they'll have a nut or a berry or seed that needs to be hulled, and they hold it in their talons to work on it. Nuthatches will slide a seed into a crevasse in a tree to keep it still while they jab at it with their sharp little bill. They don't do anything at all with their talons while eating; I think they're exclusively for the purpose of running up and down trees and clinging to the underside of branches.

• I used to see woodpeckers leave a feeder and immediately go peck at a tree, and always thought, "Come on, man, you can't still be hungry," but of course I now know that they are taking whatever they got out of the feeder to the tree to peck it open. I have known this for a long time, and I for sure did not just put it together today by watching a bunch of different birds at feeders.

• Earlier today, while looking at a bunch of shiny one-sleeved shirts in a mall store that I was only legally allowed to enter because a cool teen accompanied me, I attempted to explain the Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell Sisters television show to her. This went about the way you might expect.
• She got me for twelve dollar patterned tights from Hot Topic and $102 in hair care products.

BOTD: Tufted titmouse. There was a healthy handful roaming around the nature center trail the whole time I was there. I was worried it would be pretty quiet in the middle of the afternoon, but I had forgotten that the volunteers clear brush every other Friday, so there was a lot of scattering and resettling.