January 14, 2026

Where: the neighborhood

When: 7:43am

Bird Species: house sparrow, blue jay, American robin, mourning dove, American crow, dark-eyed juncos, northern cardinal, European starling

Things I Thought About:

• How much we did NOT beat ass at trivia last night, despite getting all three parts of the music question right for once.
• These blue jays are horny.
• There are two married cardinal couples on those two trees and not one of the four will pose properly. 
• Everybody is pairing up but me: the cardinals, the doves, the jays. 
• The mockingbirds aren’t pairing up, but they are ganging up. I suspect there’s a nest in that hedge, but I’d be scared to check.
• The dentist at 10:30, which means take half a Xanax at 10, which means no water or food for an hour after, and a headache and desperately sleepy by 3pm. I should send that resume off the minute I get in the house, but I bet I don’t. (Note: yep.) 
• I hope I get to keep this tooth for another little while. I can't see it at all, is the trouble, so either I’ve irritated the gum, the knot from the surgery is irritating my cheek, or it’s just sliding out of the dissolving bone again. It's a mini-mystery.
• It’s almost enough to make me wish I hadn’t smoked 30-40 cigarettes a day for 23 years.
• Oh, that’s a good picture of that streaky little sparrow. Better bank that; I saw “wintry mix” in the app.

BOTD: mourning dove. I like these guys, even though they mostly just sit there. They have a lot more color than you’d think, and they often let their heads slump and collapse down into their feathers, and with just that big eye peeking out they look like Bette Davis as Queen Elizabeth. When you startle them (which you can do very easily because they like to gather in groups on the ground and not pay any attention until you walk almost on top of them) they fly up and away with a lovely liquid whistle and a beautiful display of white from their fanned tail feathers. A very suburban bird.