July 26, 2026

Where: Huntley Meadows Park

When: 6:50 am

Bird Species: eastern wood pewee, Carolina wren, northern cardinal, Carolina chickadee, tufted titmouse, American robin, American goldfinch, eastern bluebird, downy woodpecker, white-breasted nuthatch, blue-gray gnatcatcher, common yellowthroat, red-winged blackbird, yellow-billed cuckoo, eastern kingbird, gray catbird, northern mockingbird, ruby-throated hummingbird, great egret, great blue heron, green heron, barn swallow, osprey, Canada goose, mallard, Acadian flycatcher, great-crested flycatcher, European starling

Things I Thought About:

• I don’t know why media loves to make fun of yoga retreats. There’s a lot to be said for doing your stretching early, and outside. I don’t do yoga, but I do like to put my limbs through a series of movements, and when I stretched my arms overhead both shoulders popped in an immensely satisfying way in all this early morning silence.
• I have been trying to build up some muscle in my quads without hurting my knees, and this involves doing knee exercises where I sit on the floor with my legs stretched out and simply press my knee into a folded towel. This is exacty the same strength-building exercises they give people who have been in medically induced comas, which does accurately describe my muscle tone. If it starts working, that will actually be a little embarrassing.
• Knees be damned, it is quite lovely weather this morning, so I am happy to make a second weekend visit. I think I only listed about ten birds out here yesterday because I was happily hanging out with pals. This morning I’ve gotten six before I can even see the boardwalk. It’s nice to know that the only secret ingredient is attention.

• Lots of people out taking photos of the tiny green tree frogs today. They’re all over the place today, drinking up the dew.
• There's the yellow-billed cuckoo again. There is a guy on the boardwalk next to me who says a happy little “oh!” about a half a second after I do, and points the bird out to his tiny mom. We all grin at each other, satisfied, as it flies into the woods, and he says, “I never would have seen it if I hadn’t seen you looking.” This is the second most gratifying thing a person can say to me, the first being, “I loved the book you recommended.” But this one is climbing the chart.

• There are hummingbirds, too. Two are dancing along a branch and the boardwalk split, not much larger than the big blue damselflies flitting around. Another bird flies in, and they scatter. "Don't let that big bully drive you off," the elder next to me mutters. The big bully in question here is a yellowthroat, a bird significantly smaller than your average finch, but still twice the size of the hummers.
• I missed the dive, but crossing past the observation tower I find the osprey settling in on a snag. Fantastic bird.

• I am wildly disconcerted to find another birdwatcher on the little offshoot of the trail where I always stop off to pee. There is nothing for it except to say, "Behind you, dude, sorry to disturb you, but I need to pee behind a tree."
• I one hundred percent do not do this. I say, "Good morning," pass him, and then walk quite a way further off trail than I ordinarily would, and hurry so much that I almost pee on my phone, which flips out of my pocket as I fumble with my necessarily tight birdwatching pants.
• We need to normalize saying, "Look, I am actively experiencing menopausal changes and from the moment I think 'I kind of have to pee' there is a ticking clock." People would take it in stride if a very cool and normal woman said that to them as she passed in a hurry, I bet.
• My talk to text translated this as a "Peace Stop," which it decidedly was not today.
• Egrets and turtles are friends. Herons and turtles are just kind of next to each other, but egrets and turtles like hanging out together. I feel this strongly.

• It's good to be out here on the correct schedule: you get here early and hear the noisy birds, the wrens and the cardinals wake up first, and then when the sky opens up before the boardwalk, you see that bluebirds and woodpeckers. Hit the boardwalk, and see the small birds, the songbirds. There are two big willow trees that overhang the path, and blue-gray gnatcatchers love willows. Then come in the red-wing blackbirds and larger berry eaters, and then the fully exposed boardwalk over the water, where the ponds are filled with ducks all winter, and tall wading birds and swallows in the summer. It gets very hot out there, so after a time, after you've gotten your fill of watching the big birds fish, you step off on to the second half of the loop, which is fully shaded, and enjoy those birds that are just springing to life over there on the cool side, chickadees often, and flycatchers usually in the summer, though I rarely see them. The loop closes right at the top of the boardwalk again, so you can decide if you're ready to head right, back to the car, or left, to loop around again and see if you can catch something you missed.
• I do two full loops today, and I get the both the flycatchers.

BOTD: Great-crested flycatcher, the first time he's been featured on the blog.

I went back and checked, and I've only listed him twice this year, with only one photo, bemoaning how I couldn't be a hundred percent sure of the ID on a gloomy day, and how I wished I could show off his colors.

Today he was at a fair distance, so he's fuzzy, but he was clear as crystal in the binos and I felt really lucky anyway. I have mentioned how the scale of the park is daunting sometimes, and on that back section of the trail, where it stays dark and shady all day, the sightlines can always be a little challenging. There was a break in the lower canopy where you could see this half-bare tree fully in the sunshine behind it, and I saw that flash of bright yellow first. He was hopping around from knot to knot, swooping off to get a bug and then returning to a different snag, but always returning to the same tree where I could watch him.

You can't really see his crest at all, but you can tell about that bright yellow, and how the brown is more red clay than soil, with those strong bars. A little gaudy, a little special.