August 26, 2026

Where: Downtown DC

When: 12:45 pm

Bird Species: European starling, house sparrow, rock pigeon, blue jay

Things I Thought About:

• Well, you definitely do not got to hand it to him, but downtown looks absolutely beautiful today. I have not seen Freedom Plaza without construction fencing all summer until today. I've never seen the Freedom Plaza at all, I guess. I have no idea when it opened, but I am genuinely surprised to see trees and a big fountain here this afternoon. I know a lot of the freshly trimmed and cleared look around here is a remnant of our cool president's vroom vroom car playdate, but it is quite nice.
• The National Guard, as always, looks like a turd in a punchbowl out here among the business casual lunch dates.
• There's a food market over at the Reagan building on Wednesdays, I have been told, and it's nice enough out that I'm in a mood stroll over. There's a little promenade with trees, and a handful of young starlings are noisily calling over the sounds of the live music.

• The live music is an R&B/funk ensemble with horns. They're quite good. This is nice. It's always good to hear a saxophone on your lunch break.
• There are always a bunch of house sparrows in the small trees at the World War I memorial. I have been thinking of this as the closest place to my desk where I can see a bird on a quick break, but now that I know about the Reagan building trees maybe I have options.

• I have to be on camera for a call in 20 minutes, but I definitely hear a blue jay, and I'm leaving until I what the fuck is that
• There is a bald jay in the newly rooted fruit trees on the Freedom Plaza, and the fountain there is on. When the wind gusts even a little, the spray from the water flies onto me. I am walking under these trees, taking photo after photo of this wildly uncooperative Bloödcheëp, grinning like an idiot. What a horrific little beast.
• I am four minutes late to my call. Not bad.

BOTD: Blue jay. I heard this bird way before I saw it, and when I saw it, I did indeed say, "What the fuck is that??" out loud, while laughing.

Most birds have a complete molt at least once a year, I have learned, but some more colorful ones will have a partial molt as well. For blue jays, they'll have a complete molt post-breeding season, and a partial molt in the spring, pre-breeding, to make itself more colorful and attractive to mates.

Usually when a bird molts, even a complete molt, they only look a little ragged and occasionally patchy, as feathers are pushed out to make room for the new ones coming in behind them. Think baby teeth. You wouldn't really notice it happening until the actual fallout.

But every now and then, not at all rarely, a bird will experience what's called a catastrophic molt, where all the head feathers fall out at once, and then just have to wait for the new ones to break through and come in. This makes for some pretty incredible looks. This guy was hopelessly backlit, and way overhead, but I think the spirit of the moment came through.

I must say, for the record, that the starling and the sparrow shown in today's entry are possibly my two favorite photos I've taken in August, especially that starling. I took about forty photos of this jay, and none of them were worth a damn, really, But the starling and the sparrow simply were not the bird of the day. Watching a little Henson Creature Shop vulture-monster eat a little fruit under a blue sky while a fountain cools you off is Bird of the Day, hands down.