February 16, 2026

Where: the neighborhood

When: 1:30pm

Bird Species: house sparrow, house finch, American robin, European starling, northern mockingbird, mourning dove, blue jay, Cooper's hawk, northern cardinal

Things I Thought About:

• I have been listening to the Staying Alive podcast and have realized that I love listening to men talk about feeling fat. And I don’t mean “talk about their fitness and diet regimen.” Most of the guests are on camera for a living at least part of the year, so they have to be self-conscious about their looks in a way the average woman anywhere in America has been trained to do pretty much every day of their life since fourth grade. One might almost suspect we’re all victims of the same systems. 
• It’s easy to make fun of the male loneliness epidemic, but I suspect it’s real and damaging and I wish real life men who don’t podcast for a living would have more conversations about how they feel about themselves with each other, instead of taking the "the government should assign me a girlfriend" route.
• Boy, there are, like, no birds on the ground today. The snow piles are melting to reveal just incredible litter and detritus from tipped over bins and trash that is thawing after two weeks of freeze. You’d think they’d be everywhere. All I see are trees full of robins and starlings, and this one mockingbird, looking more dinosaur than usual, snacking on fallen berries.

• Two whole people have said they miss the bullet points. I have to admit, when I popped the last two entries open on my phone they do look more tedious, even though the word count is the same. Well, I made a promise to the reader that I would never make a post more challenging than the average person can read during the average shit, and I am a slave to the high of knowing people read and enjoy to the point of having opinions. So bullet points will probably be back when I write this up later.
• I have been trying to place where that "average person, average shit" reference comes from all year, and it is Jeff Goldblum in The Big Chill, talking about writing for People magazine. It just came to me in a flash. 
• And there’s the big hawk. I am going to take my chances walking up this driveway to get as good a view as I can on a sunless day. I always kind of wave at the windows of the house to show I’m a friendly, in case someone is peeking and wondering what I’m doing, and I often wonder if that would make it worse if someone was in there thinking about stepping out with a loaded gun. 
• A challenging thing about birds is how often you find them in trees. Nothing thwarts my photography skills like a bunch of branches in the way. I suppose I should be grateful; in the summer most of my birding photos are of foliage.
• Pinky! Pinky also back. Your skies will be dark tonight because all the stars are here.

• You know how every now and then you’ll see a prompt for “what is your most conservative opinion?” Mine might be that people should have taken their Christmas shit down by now.

BOTD: Cooper's hawk. I have been on a real raptor kick lately. I saw northern harriers at Blackwater in December and again Friday at Bombay Hook, and they're one of the coolest birds I have ever seen. Maybe one of the coolest birds there is. They hunt in total silence, and their nickname is Grey Ghost, which, c'mon. Beside the harriers, that sharpie from the other day might be my current favorite, just because he was so little to be so violent. I look for the two neighborhood Coops every time I go out now.

Owls are also raptors, but for some reason my brain refuses to group them together. I have never seen a barn owl or a northern screech owl, both native to here, but I think I've seen all 6 of the native hawks, plus a merlin, a kestrel, a peregrine falcon once (sore subject), and ospreys for days. If you forced me to name my favorite single bird, osprey might get the call. You'd have to push me pretty hard, though.

Vultures are often classified with raptors due to their size and how they soar, but recently ornithology as a discipline has them trending more "stork." I expect there will be a re-class eventually.