January 17, 2026

Where: Huntley Meadows Park

When: around 3pm until sundown

Bird Species: Carolina chickadee, northern cardinal, red-headed woodpecker, tufted titmouse, downy woodpecker, eastern bluebird, song sparrow, swamp sparrow, white-throated sparrow, northern mockingbird, Canada goose, mallard, northern shoveler, northern pintail, eastern towhee, great blue heron, fish crow. Heard but not seen: Northern flicker, back on my shit list.

Things I Thought About:

• Finally sunny and 43 at 3pm, good bird weather. My absolute favorite time is the day after a snow, when it has mostly melted off and the ground is completely saturated and there’s still the occasional drift or shady spot where the snow and ice make a great background.
• No snow today, but the swamp is frozen over in huge swaths, so the ducks and geese all congregate in little patches where it’s melted clear. Watching ducks walk on ice with their little orange legs is good clean fun, and I think those are Northern shovelers, my favorite duck.
• If I’m going to be able to get a good look at these ducks, I’m going to have to kneel on this boardwalk, and there are three teens hanging out on the bench right there. The idea of having to get back up out of a kneel or squat in front of teens is mortifying, but I’m a big brave girl, I guess.
• Mostly mallards, but a handful of pintails, and there is a shoveler couple, and the teens are carrying on as if I am not even there. I am eavesdropping shamelessly, what if you got handed a million dollars to do anything with, “I’d take us all to the dealership for cars, we’d go shopping, I’d pay my mom’s debt, I’d pay for Carla’s school.” Okay, but for real, how much money would it take to fix your life right now? They settle on 15K, except the one kid who needs 40 “cause of my piece of shit car.” They are all in agreement that he needs to do something about his piece of shit car.

• I did a truly terrible job getting up from the crouch. I even had to grunt a bit, but the teens were blissfully unaware, deep into “What kind of business would you ever open?” The girl would sell shoes, one of the guys would open an auto shop, the guy with the piece of shit car would just be in charge of breaking people’s cars to keep him in business. The kids are all right.
• Oh, the lady red-winged blackbirds are here! They get here weeks and weeks before the males do, which is so funny to me, a person who thinks all bird pairs are married. “Hey, honey, you go along with the girls and pick us out a spot and build a house, and then I’ll come in few weeks and scream and scream and wage all-out war on all our neighbors, okay?”
• Wow, the minute the sun drops behind the trees it gets uncomfortably cold, but it pleases me to note that this does not happen until 4:40 or so today.
• A great blue heron is a muppet.
• In the parking lot, I encounter a woman I chatted with on the way in. “Any luck with your owl?” “Nope, any luck with your flicker?” “Nope." "Next time!” “We’ll get 'em next time.” I don’t why this feels so good, little interactions like this, except of course I do know why, and I wish them for everybody. We do not all have to be strangers, completely.
• Oh, fuck, I think I left that butternut squash I baked yesterday for soup out in the oven all night. That's fine, right? It's probably fine.

BOTD: Eastern towhee. That one up there is a male, and there were two of them, both looked pretty small and young. There are few reasons to like this bird.
1) Their song does indeed sound very much like “TOW-heeee-eeeeeeeee” which is very sensible and satisfying. See also the Eastern wood pewee.
2) Their colors are very rich, and not like any other bird around here. The darkest feathers on crows and grackles have a shiny quality, and most of the other guys are really dark gray and not true black, but the black on these guys looks like a quality fabric, true black. It looks expensive, as does that caramel.
3) Cuuuuute.