July 11, 2026
Where: Hidden Oaks Nature Center
When: 12:40 pm
Bird Species: tufted titmouse, American robin, northern cardinal
Things I Thought About:
- The other night at pub quiz there was a question about the Wallendas and for a second I couldn't remember if they did tightrope or trapeze. In the course of our secret, whispered consultation, I drew a doodle of Kurt Wallenda walking a rope between the twin towers in 1978, which obviously my sister didn't get because it just looked like stylized letter H. So a drew a little cloud of smoke coming out of one them, and then she got it. I am not proud of this.
- Then I was much, much less proud when I looked it up earlier today, and those weren't the twin towers, it was just some hotel in Puerto Rico, and also his name was Karl, and also he fucking fell and died.
- This is how my magpie brain works, I know just the barest shape of facts about things.
- I probably thought "Kurt" Wallenda because of Kurt Wallandar, the famous fictional Swedish police inspector from the novels. The audiobooks are narrated by the same guy who narrates the Jack Reacher audiobooks, which is pretty wild when you think about it.
- I am giving myself 5 minutes to find a bird. It's gross out again, and I am tired and have one more errand to run, and I don't mind going into the grocery store in a pitted out t-shirt but it is very humid and I don't want to stay out long enough to develop butt crack sweat.
- Southerners are trained from birth to ignore this on men, especially when you spend a decade working around golfers; nevertheless it is not a look for me.
BOTD: tufted titmouse. It was the first bird I saw. Today's desultory bird walk is something else I'm not especially proud of, but it was the hottest part of the day and I'm going to try for the least bittern tomorrow.
