August 24, 2026
Where: Ossian Hall Park, which is actually the high school
When: 5:20 pm
Bird Species: house sparrow, mourning dove, American robin, northern mockingbird, house finch, American crow
Things I Thought About:
- Bird right now are quiet, and fat.
- Bears will enter a period of hyperphagia in the fall, where they put on a ton of weight to get ready to hibernate. And I would understand it if the birds that leave were putting on weight right now, to fuel up for the flight, but the year-round birds are looking big. This is probably just the cycle of the seasons and I've just never noticed.
- The quiet part I also get. The warblers are just passing through, and not yet in any real numbers, while some of the migrants who summer here have already left, and the ones that winter here aren't back yet. So I've been seeing fewer species during walks.
- Thus do the late summer doldrums come for us all.
- This park sits on the corner of the high school athletic fields, and school started today. Maybe this is just a relic of going through public school in SEC country, but these boys look small in their football pads and helmets.
- All around the practice fields they are playing music, a playlist obviously by and for parents, filled with high energy hits of the early 2010s, familiar and inoffensive. Think Pitbull's "Feel This Moment." Classic pop, in the way they would play 70s classic rock for when I was in high school in the 80s.
- I'm enjoying it quite a bit, she said grimly. Gym music for middle-aged out-of-shape aunties.
- Passing my car inspection this year cost $1287 goddamn dollars. I better go somewhere soon.
BOTD: House sparrow. Just all over the place today.
