February 8, 2026

Where: Huntley Meadows Park

When: 12:35-3:08pm

Bird Species: dark-eyed junco, tufted titmouse, Eastern bluebird, white-throated sparrow, red-bellied woodpecker, red-shouldered hawk, downy woodpecker, white-breasted nuthatch, swamp sparrow, song sparrow, Carolina chickadee, red-headed woodpecker, Eastern towhee

Things I Thought About:

• It feels so good to be out here. I was shocked to see that it has only been 3 weeks, it feels much longer. It's for sure going to be slow going on the trails, but this is my favorite place in the world, I think, and I have been in an advanced state of Why are things so fucked? in a meaner and more distressed way than usual this weekend. Sometimes this condition presents as a simple “Seeing a duck will fix me” and sometimes it presents as “The Unabomber made some good points,” but the treatment is “Go to your swamp, hag” and it's already working.
• Not that there will be any ducks out here. I would be shocked if there were any waterfowl anywhere in Northern Virginia right now except for on the Potomac. My heart still pines for ducks, but there should be a lot of small birds around today.
• Oh. Well, this does not look promising, but I’m going to try it anyway. 

• An under-discussed aspect of the natural aging process is the caution, the vulnerability of it all, I think. There were whole decades of my life where I would not have thought twice about this, I'll just watch where I put my feet and I'll be fine. Now I am very aware of how a hard fall on snow and ice at this point in my life is something that will probably hurt me a little bit all the time until I am dead. People in their 50s only talk about this in the context of how they can’t drink anymore, bemoaning how they never used to get hangovers, and don’t connect it to “I used to be able to hurt myself, all the time, and it never was a big deal, but now I really can’t afford to hurt myself.” But it’s the same thought.
• I thought at first I wasn’t going to see a lot of birds, but there are mixed flocks foraging on the ground all over the place. It’s wild that they’re all finding plenty to nosh on in this layer of winter. Resilient little guys.
• The first people I have seen since I got here, I meet about ⅔ of the way to the boardwalk, which they report as perfectly clear and dry in the sun. We are all in agreement that it isn’t too bad for birds today, considering how much time we have to spend watching our feet and not the treetops. As we talk, a red-headed woodpecker screams, relatively closely, behind us and off to the right. The same look on all three faces and surely must also be on mine: a jolt of excitement, then consternation, then the immediate good-humored acceptance that no one is going to be able to chase down a bird today. No one is rushing on this path; today the birds have to come to us.
• The boardwalk is as clear and dry as promised, but the marsh is frozen solid. The first time I talked about Huntley on the bird blog, I mentioned how I knew every part of it and the full cycle of the seasons, but this is a brand-new data point. I have never seen it like this. I’ve never been here when there is no open water at all, just ice. I’ve never seen human footprints leave the boardwalk and step out onto what has always, until now, been a pond. I’ve never seen so few human visitors on a Sunday. It's incredibly beautiful.
• Ha, there’s a chickadee picking at marsh reeds and cattails, something I confidently stated they like to do based on nothing but my own experience. I like it when a bird validates my vibes-based pretend expertise.

• Of course, I have also made confident statements of mad hubris on the blog, for example, when I said no winter bird looks like any other around here. I guess I forgot that swamp sparrows exist. They could be anybody.
• [Monty Python voice] That was never two hours just now!
• Oh. There’s the red-headed woodpecker. Well, that worked out.

• I see a female towhee foraging in the middle of a group of white-throated sparrows, and I break the one rule I had for the day, and I chase her. Not more than 15 feet later my foot hits a patch of wet ice and I do that thing where you slide smoothly for about 8 inches and then you're walking again, and your stomach drops like when you tip too far back on a chair. Remember in Jaws when Quint says the most scared he was the whole time with the Indianapolis was waiting for the plane to pick him up? This is how I feel when my heart stops pounding, and I notice that I can see the parking lot gate from here. It would be embarrassing to shatter my pelvis now.

• If that barred owl is hanging around the parking lot like he does sometimes, I'm going to skip having to write this up and just post the hackiest Super Bowl joke you've ever seen. (Note: rats.)

BOTD: white-throated sparrow, the best sparrow. I love those yellow bands on their heads, and how there is never one white-throated sparrow but a crowd of them, and how relentlessly they forage. They never aren't eating; they come here for the winter and they get so fat. Relatable.