February 20, 2026

Where: to the HMart, sidewalks, 7905 steps round trip

When: 3:35pm

Bird Species: house sparrow, house finch, northern cardinal, northern mockingbird, song sparrow, European starling, American crow, American robin, downy woodpecker, red-bellied woodpecker, mourning dove, common grackle. The usual suspects.

Things I Thought About:

• FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! A blue jay is challenging an American crow for a treetop. It’s very fun! They mostly just flap at each other and hop closer, then away, then closer, branch to branch. Big “I’m not touching you” vibes from the blue jay, who is naturally screaming the whole time. Crows can remember human faces, I have read, and they hold grudges, so I am carefully not doing anything to suggest I’m enjoying the way that jay will not get off his nuts.

• HMart is the only store within walking distance from my home, so it’s the same general neighborhood but a slightly larger loop two streets over from my usual beat. This road has a house with a Little Free Library. In it are the usual books, but also a plastic CD case with Baby’s First Christmas 2008 photos on it. I check every time I come this way, and it has been there for over three years now. 

• Everything in me says that it is very wrong to just have it out here for anyone to take, obviously someone has placed it in the Little Free Library by mistake, but what does one do about this? Knock on the door of the house and say, “I hope this is yours,” thereby letting them know that you know that they put their child’s Santa photos in a Little Free Library? Three years ago?
• If it isn’t theirs, I’ve just handed them a bag of dog poop. 
• I always think I should just take it out of there, but then what? I am now the woman who took photos of a stranger’s child with Santa from a Little Free Library. Just to, what, to put it in a dumpster?
• You definitely can’t take it to your house. Someone comes over and sees it and says “Awwww, whose first visit to Santa?” and I have to say, “I have no idea, I just saw it and took it so no one else could have it.” Now I’m QAnon.
• I’m leaving it again, of course, but it preys on my mind.
• Crow left. There is no change at all in the amount of yelling the blue jay is doing. I think this is mating behavior, probably. Show off.

BOTD: The American robin. There was sizeable flock occupying this winterberry tree, nibbling away. A lovely colorful splash in the last of the sunlight, and great to see the sun after a miserable start to the day.

It's an interesting time of year to really look at these big flocks, because of the mix of ages. I said yesterday that in the fog they don't look as orange as they should, but the juveniles still have their vivid colors yet to develop, even in broad daylight. Their silhouettes are slenderer, too. The younger, smaller ones hung back in the other trees until the elders got their fill, it looked like. In the summertime, you won't see more than three or four together; they really spread out when there are more kinds of berries and bugs around.