January 19, 2026

Where: Cross County Trail, Eakin Community Park through Sally Ormsby Park

When: 12:00pm

Bird Species: white-throated sparrow, dark-eyed junco, northern cardinal, hairy woodpecker, red-bellied woodpecker, ruby-crowned kinglet, red-shouldered hawk, Carolina wren

Things I Thought About:

• I don’t like how if you don’t do your physical therapy at all for five months your Achilles bursitis will start giving you grief again. 
• One of the houses that backs up to the CCT has placed a painted Bigfoot in their backyard so that it faces the trail. I love it. This is very silly.

• Tomorrow starts the longest period of the calendar year without a paid holiday. The next one is Memorial Day. Last year I was so sure I was going to get offered a job in the fall that I horded my time in the second half of the year, hoping for a sizable payout, and absolutely fucked myself with hours that didn’t rollover. This year I have already put in for a three- or four-day weekend every month. 
• My birthday is mid-June, and Juneteenth is on Friday this year, so I only have to use four days of PTO to get nine straight days off for my birthday. Pro tip from me, as a treat. It doesn't have to be your birthday to use that.
• I can hear a hairy woodpecker but haven’t found it yet. When I hear a bird, but don’t see it, I concentrate on where my two feet are on the ground and just breathe for a second or two to kind of relax and make my body still. The stiller I am, the more likely I am to notice movement, or a patch of color that isn’t quite right, or to be able to pick a specific bird call out of a chorus. It’s such a simple practice, just to spend a conscious few seconds on “Where are your feet? Where are you standing on this earth, where are you right now?” and then build outward from there. I have, on occasion, been able to do it inside, too, when I’m anxious or becoming upset. If nothing else, I have my two feet planted on some solid ground. 
• Doesn’t work at the dentist, like, at all.  
• The winter urge to hydrate versus the menopausal weakening of pelvic floor muscles. Inside you are two wolves, and they both have to pee so bad.

BOTD: the ruby-crowned kinglet. They are very small, and very hyperactive. I have a terrible time getting a photo of kinglets, and there are many more golden-crowned kinglets around here than ruby-crowned. This is, in fact, the very first time I’ve seen one with his ruby-crown showing! It's usually concealed, or else I've only seen females. It’s a miracle I managed to frame him up in time. Today was one of those days that wherever I looked I was a millisecond too late. A real thrill to catch this little guy.