February 26, 2026

Where: the neighborhood

When: 9:00am

Bird Species: mourning dove, American crow, blue jay, Carolina wren, house sparrow, Pinky, house finch, European starling, northern cardinal (other), song sparrow, downy woodpecker. Heard but not seen: northern fucking flicker.

Things I Thought About:

• All my shoes are falling apart, and when I get mad about it I try to remember how long I’ve had them and it’s always like “since 2003, maybe?”
• A person I chat with sometimes on the morning walk calls mockingbirds “mockers,” and every time I hear her say that I think “Strong drink is a mocker,” a phrase I read in some Golden Age British detective novel that stuck with me. I now understand this to be a misquote of the Bible. Wine is a mocker, and strong drink a brawler. And to be sure, a northern mockingbird is also a brawler. 
• I have picked up a lot of phrases from Golden Age British detective novels, actually. Lord Peter Wimsey says a lot of really good shit, and he and Harriet Vane were hot, hot, hot. Roderick Allyn was a bit of a stick, but that's what you need when you hang out with actors, I suppose.
• I can see a house finch in a tree across the street and that is crazy. A finch is a very small bird! There is no way I should be able to see one from all the way over here, but this is the time of year where winter plumage is as fat and fluffy as it ever gets, and food has been plentiful this year. You truly cannot make an ID just by size or silhouette on a dreary morning, which they all are, lately.

• The mix of the young and lean and the fat adult birds in flocks is wild, like when you watch a Little League game and think “I know all these kids are 12 years old, but some of them are weedy little runts and some of them are nearly 6 feet tall and built like Toby jugs.” It’s almost disorienting.
• Lord Peter Wimsey has a famous quote about ducks, in fact! “How fleeting are all human passions compared to the massive continuity of ducks.” You kind of need the whole paragraph, but sir…yes. What a comfort. I'm going to look at some tomorrow, maybe.
• It may be time to re-read Gaudy Night again; it's part of my life cycle, I think.
• Also to re-read Robert McCammon's Swan Song, a novel that looms HUGE in my development as a reader. I bet I've given away four copies in my life. They released a beautiful trade paperback a few years ago, but the original cover from the 80s mass market paperback horror boom couldn't be beat.
• There is a female cardinal hanging out along the property line by herself. Get over here, Pinky. Why I am so invested in getting this bird laid, God only knows.
• Maybe 2026 will be the year I remember how to read. I was always a girl with a book in her purse, and then I got a twitter in 2012 and broke my whole entire brain.
• Read books and go on walks and get a new job and hydrate and take care of myself, as a bit.

BOTD: the mourning dove. They have been very present and very amusing of late. There are a lot of them around, and most of them seem to be hanging out in pairs and hopping around from stump to stump in bouncing little walks or quick short flights, with their gorgeous light fan-tails and lovely liquid whistle.

When they bob around, they remind me of some old animated character, like a really old one, that I can barely remember, that was, I think a ghost or a clown, shaped like the ones with the weighted bottoms that you punch and can't knock over. They are extremely silly birds.