February 22, 2026

Where: my complex

When: 1:30pm

Bird Species: northern cardinal, American crow (flyover), blue jay, house sparrow, mourning dove, northern mockingbird

• The Capital Weather Gang has adopted a pretty sassy online persona for an outfit that regularly predicts snow totals as “less than 2 to maybe 11 inches, depending.”
• I probably should have picked an old bird photo and called today a write-off at 10 am. Do I really want to take a chance the rain will pick up again, do I want to have to take apart every bit of this not especially robust camera and dry it off just to get a mediocre photo of a soaking wet bird on a wire? Not particularly, but the big hike yesterday has stiffened my joints up and I do want to move my body around a little. Just a drizzle for the moment, but I’m prepared to cut and run at any moment.
• A thing I do not love is how the common trope of old bones and injuries hurting in the rain has turned out to be 150% true.
• I do not know how it is possible that I have never noticed this before? If it isn't new in the last few days I am fully losing it.

• I have zero expectations of getting a decent photo today. The birds around here will be buried as deep as they can get into the ravine or a bush. I suppose at the very least, there will be a mourning dove on the cables across the road; there always is.
• A blue jay has dived into a large round bush and is in there screaming and snacking, and basically presenting the worst possible photo opportunity. He’s so close, I could stick my hand in this bush and touch him, probably, but there is simply no way to frame him up. I have just been circling this bush in what is now a steady light rain, with my umbrella handle stuck down the front of my bra so I can use both hands to try to find this little bastard. It’s very undignified. I’m better than this.

• Some of the great fun of taking bird photos is pretending I’m on Wild Kingdom or the Saturday afternoon movies of my youth, sneaking around, being stealthy, not making sudden movements and slowly closing in on my quarry for a shot. The way I snuck up on that owl nest yesterday, trying to find the least obscured view without making noise or going off trail and spooking it at all. Watching where I put my foot down each time, trying to be intrepid and invisible. It felt great, like being a kid again. 
• Today is the opposite of that. I am splashing in the puddles and it’s really coming down now and I guess I’ll settle for the dove.
• Oh, thank God, I see a light-colored blob in that brush and that's going to be a mockingbird, I can quit now.
• If it snows more than 2 inches tonight and isn’t gone by Tuesday I am going to seppuku.

BOTD: northern mockingbird comes through. All this rain is supposed to turn into snow around 4. I make no promises for tomorrow; NOVA weather of late has been the absolute pits.