January 10, 2026

Where: in my house

When: I didn't go outside one time

Bird Species: not a dang one

Things I Thought About:

• Well, I have missed the window for breakfast on my brand new high-protein, strict-routine nutritionist-approved lifestyle. I don't get to be annoyed; this is a lesson I need to learn. I always sleep too late when it’s pouring rain on a Saturday.
• What should I plan to do on the blog on a day when I can’t get a photo? It will happen, especially when the daylight is so short. I suspect it’s going to happen today, according to the weather app. 
• Also, this is just for fun, and I don’t want to make it into a chore. What if it rains again someday? What if I have to work late? What if I’m sick? What if I don’t wanna?
• Finally lunch, and the rain is lessening, but now I have been fed into the laundry room conveyor belt for transferring and removing loads of clothes between machines so the next guy can start, and I think your neighbors get to slash your tires if you just wander off in the middle of all that.
• The rain is now light enough for me to put on my rain jacket and get a walk in, but it's still too heavy to take my camera. I...am not going to.
• I should take down this Christmas crap.
• Should I post an “Image not found” on days like today, and then talk about something else I did that day? That’s what the five social media accounts I’m avoiding this year are for. This has to be bird-forward. I need to figure this out.
• I have five days until my free trial expires and I have to spend money for this nice little platform, so I want to make sure I like what I'm producing before I share publicly. I spent an hour of my one wild and precious life picking a new font for the header image and headers yesterday. Turns out the shape of the tail of a Y is very important to me!
• Should I fake it and find an old cloudy day picture and use that today? That feels like being deceitful on the internet in a way I don't like contributing to in these troubled times. I don’t want to do that, and I don’t want to pretend I took a good photo on days I only get bad photos, either. But I also don’t want to do nothing; it might be deflating to be sitting on the toilet, pop open your email from your old pal Sara Kate, and see a big

• Okay, I can post an old photo, but it has to be relevant. For a given value of relevant, none of this is relevant. But maybe a better photo of a bird I talked about recently, or a photo of a bird I want to go looking for soon. It one hundred percent has to be a photo of a bird I personally took either way.
• And I can’t call it BOTD that day.

• No puns, people will hate that, remember the Peruvian owls who only hunt in pairs, because they’re Inca hoots? People hated that one.
• Bird of the Yesterday, probably. (Yester)day? Yesterday. Or Rebecca suggested a good old Rainy-Day Rewind. Except sometimes it won’t be raining, I’ll just have missed it.
• The Official Gatorade Timeout Game Delay Relief Bird brought to you by Rolaids.
• It’s pouring rain again. The balcony garlands are never going to be dry enough to pack up and that goddamn Rubbermaid crate is going to sit in my living room for a month.
• Back-ups. Alternates. Understudies. Pinch-hitters. Finch-hitters? No. Stop that, Sara Kate.
• Back-up Bird isn’t bad. 
• Well, now it’s too dark for pictures at 3:47pm. Also, it's raining, for a change.
• In Locum Avis
• From the SanDisks of Time
• You’re getting stupider, Sara. Bird of the Yesterday on the photo caption with the stats, Today’s Back-Up Bird on the subhead. Done and dusted. 
• It’s going to clear off and be sunny tomorrow. I’m going to see if I can find that sora, maybe.

Today's Back-Up Bird: this is that blue jay I told you about. Turns out it was almost two years ago. That would have been when I was still carrying around my sister's camera on a long-term loan. I often think that shorter lens took better pictures? I got fewer subjects in frame, but I think the auto-settings didn't have to work so hard to focus up. Of course, once again, I could probably resolve this by learning more about my camera.

Anyway, this blue jay was sitting on a branch about 30 feet off the trail, and I had already gotten a nice photo of him sitting very still, and then he swooped down and came right back up, and I thought "that is the most disgusting worm I've ever seen in my life, how can it be so monstrous" and then I realized it was a snake and that, oh, yeah, blue jays eat meat. All this took about a 20th of a second to think, and then I just watched him eat it. It fucking owned.