January 5, 2026

Where: Auto repair shop to my house, via surface streets and Cross County Trail at Wakefield

When: 10:15-11:23 am (Note: when I did this same walk to pick up my car at 4:30 it took me 31:11. You'll never see me rush back to my desk.)

Bird Species: Carolina chickadee, red-shouldered hawk, downy woodpecker, dark-eyed junco, white-throated sparrow, American crow, tufted titmouse, yellow-rumped warbler, Canada goose (flyover), northern cardinal

Things I Thought About:

• I don't think I've been listing the crows on the blog? People should assume "American crow."
• Work. You won’t believe it, but often when outside I am thinking about work, even when I’m just trying to chill out and watch some dang birds. This is the first day back after a 15-day break, and I had 50 minutes to triage my inbox before the car was due at the garage, so one of the Things I Thought About was work.
• Are yellow-rumped warblers a year-round bird around here? I’ve never looked that up. I know the ones that are only summer, but I’m not sure if this guy is only winter. Come to think of it, that bend in the trail up ahead is where I first listed a yellow-rumped warbler, and that must have been winter, too, since that’s when I was just starting.
• I remember a lot of “that’s where I listed my first _____” places. It’s a pretty unique feeling.
• If I had gotten interested in birds during the summer, I probably would have given up. Too much foliage, too much “heard but not seen,” tough to get a clear view, a lot of small warblers and shorebirds that look alike. But in the winter, you can hear a bird, and say “where’s that bird?” and there he is, bare branch, plain view. It’s very gratifying. If you stick with it into the seasons when it’s hard, like with summer warblers or rarer migrators just passing through, it’s close to thrilling.
• The word apricity. From the Latin apricus. It was probably entirely made up by just some guy in the 1600s, and it never appeared in any dictionary until it appeared as obsolete. It’s one of my favorite words; I think it all the time. I wish I could tell the guy.
• This is one of the many highway pedestrian overpasses that come into play when one uses sections of the Cross County Trail to actually navigate around the county. This one is near my home. I have an extremely cute video from several years ago of my niece standing on it for the first time with her arms straight out, yelling “This is SO COOL.” Whenever we crossed together we would play Frogger with the beltway below, running and jumping and stopping, making sure we didn't step out in front of a car. There are about a dozen locks with initials locked on this, the least romantic bridge in Virginia. 

• If I keep casually throwing out photos and FFX county park names, eventually someone will be able to triangulate me and...stri-iangulate me.

BOTD: Dark-eyed juncos. Little round happy guys. I have no memory at all of looking at birds when I was kid, but I have a very specific memory of my mom telling me that juncos were one of her favorite birds (the other a towhee), and me teasing her by calling them “junkies.” I like imagining that if she was still around we’d do some birding together.

They winter here, and they are another bird about whom it’s always nice to notice and mark the first of the season. In November I quickly posted “JUNCOS BACK” on Bluesky and someone thought I was talking about the huge blue jeans. It is with a heavy heart that I must tell you, based on my review of the high schoolers around this complex, that JNCOs are also back.