June 10, 2026

Where: the neighborhood

When: 7:47 pm

Bird Species: house sparrow, Carolina chickadee, gray catbird, fish crow, American robin, house finch, song sparrow, mourning dove, European starling

Things I Thought About:

• Oops. I fell asleep on the couch for 35 minutes and I might have lost the light.
• Definitely need the walk after a couch nap, though.
• Now why, I wonder, is the Irving Berlin song "Moonshine Lullaby" from Annie Get Your Gun in my head right now?
• There's a male cardinal singing on the exact same branch on which a female cardinal was singing last night. Isn't that always the way.

• Oh, I know why, because in my online trivia league group chat one of my teammates revealed himself to be Irving Berlin's great-nephew.
• Glad we solved that one.
• Just got the notice that we can work from home tomorrow do to expected impacts from "the UFC event." LMAO. Downtown DC is grim and weird and I wish [redacted] every day.
• I am definitely losing the light, but those finches look nice up there. Back in the nineteen hundred and eighties, it was the fashion of the day for all sixteen-year-old girls to look like forty-year-old realtors, and the female house finch's coloring and pattern (thin tan pinstripes on cream} was a very coveted fashion choice.

• None of the brags in "Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better" is all that impressive, to be honest.
• None of these photos are going to be very impressive, either, but the birds have all been good.

BOTD: this American robin baby. When I first saw him, I simply thought, forgive me, "Oh, that robin is fucked up." There is a robin that lives in the Smithsonian castle garden that looks very rough, too, a lot of bald spots in his orange. Once I crossed the street to see better and knew it was just a little baby, he became very cute to me. Funny how that works.

All fledgling birds look like they have a white magic marker Joker ring around their mouths, and the younger they are the more pronounced it is. I eventually pieced it together that that's because they haven't grown into their mouths yet. They are born with mouths designed to open up wide enough for a parent to stick their head in it to feed them.

This little guy wasn't really moving each leg independently; he was holding them stiff and kind of hopping along. It has never been more obvious that a bird couldn't fly yet. Watching him hop up on that sign (which is a CLASS OF 2026 yard sign in front of a neighbor's house) was very funny. You better believe there was an adult robin giving me the stink eye the whole time, too.

Hey, imagine a human baby born with its adult lips. Isn't that revolting? I thought it, so now you have to also.