August 27, 2026

Where: Ranger Road Park

When: 6:00 pm

Bird Species: eastern bluebird, white-breasted nuthatch, gray catbird, mourning dove, northern cardinal

Things I Thought About:

• Absolutely Satan’s weather: cloudy, breezy, 78 degrees, 82% humidity. It feels so good, the breeze is so nice, then you stop moving for a minute and notice you are in a complete, full-body sweat.
• where are the birds
• I have had "You're All I Need to Get By" stuck in my head for a record-breaking eighth day in a row. It is wild how this song gets so completely eclipsed by "Ain't No Mountain High Enough," the vastly inferior Marvin Gaye/Tammi Terrell duet. Sorry if this offends.
• An older gentleman who is dressed in a plain white tee and khaki shorts and black oxfords and socks and is giving off "neighborhood crank" vibes at 100 paces stops to interrogate me. He is delighted that I like birds, less delighted that I call this park Ranger Road Park. "This is Cardinal Park!! Has been for decades!" oh is it, I didn't know that, it says Ranger Road on the map "The map is wrong!" oh okay, all the while looking behind and to his right at this sign.

• Before I started consciously looking at nature every single day, I would have said that eastern bluebirds were less common around here than other birds, but this summer I think they've been in the top six most frequently sighted.
• I am growing out my hair, and it is in the worst possible stage, where it's still too short to get it up off my neck with a tie or clip but taking it up with a cut this late in the summer means starting all over.
• I would submit that "what the fuck am I supposed to do with this hair" is the central tension of a woman's life from the age of 14 to I would now guess maybe 75.

BOTD: White-breasted nuthatch. I think there's something wrong with my camera; these photos should be much better than they are. It was certainly overcast but not yet dark, and I'm pretty surprised and disappointed at how poorly today pics came out.

Nuthatches are such cute birds, and this one was very small. It's been really interesting seeing how many immature adults of every species are around right now. Nuthatches can get twice and half the size of this one.

Wait, does "twice and a half" equal "three times" the size? I don't mean that, I mean twice and then a half. I don't know if this is a grammar error or a math error that is stumping me about that sentence, but I think I just broke my brain for the day.