June 16, 2026

Where: Huntley Meadows Park

When: 9:12 am

Bird Species: tufted titmouse, blue-gray gnatcatcher, northern cardinal, red-shouldered hawk, European starling, fish crow, eastern kingbird, red-winged blackbird, green heron, great blue heron, mallard, great egret, barn swallow, osprey, downy woodpecker, Canada goose, Carolina chickadee, brown-headed cowbird

Things I Thought About:

• I am on PTO today, and I arrive at the park at 9:12 am, fully aware that I am three hours late for good bird time. I slept in (7:30) and then drank coffee on my patio for a bit.
• 15 year old Sara, 26 year old Sara, 37 year old Sara, hell, 45 year old Sara would be stunned to know I routinely wake up at 6:00 am for pleasure. Today I slept in, also for pleasure.
• It is my birthday. No one here is spinning out about it, either.
• My timing is bad. I have missed all the morning birds, which means probably all the songbirds. Also, a field trip of very young children, like kindergarten, first graders, has pulled up behind me. They are looking at water from the first pond in a bucket and completely miss the green heron eating a frog. This is probably for the best. Historically, there would be two kids who think it's the coolest thing they ever saw in their lives, and two who would scream blue murder and cry.

• So far today, I have received happy birthday texts from the Aunties, three other trio group texts, my sister, the whole Sunday game night group text, Co-Star Astrology, the ACLU, an ex-boyfriend, an ex-periodontist, my boss, and Panera Bread.
• I text the periodontist "STOP." I give the ACLU twenty bucks. I text the ex-boyfriend my Venmo. None of this is swamp business. Ospreys are swamp business.

• Recently on the blog I said it was reasonable for me to expect to live 22 more years and got a mild inquisition about the specificity. In 22 years I will be 76. I will have outlived both my parents. The niece will be 35, the youngest acceptable age to lose a grownup who loves you. It's the year I said I could start smoking again if I feel like it. I feel like I will at that age wake up every day achy in my joints and sick about money. It feels like any longer than that will just be greedy.
• On the other hand, it doesn't feel that far away.
• On the other OTHER hand (third hand, shut up) it makes it easy to prioritize things? I really don't see myself living to a vibrant old age like Geena Davis or Alfed Molina in The Burroughs, an absolute fantasy about aging alone I watched on Netflix recently, and that makes it easy to peek at Microsoft Teams on your day off and say, "Literally none of this matters." Yay? I guess?
• Hey, shout out big summer bugs. I like them.

• You know who are great today? Barn swallows. I have historically griped about how they never land anywhere, but they have constructed a nest in the observation deck, and there have been some perched on the rail outside of it all day. A good-looking bird.

• I have been sitting on the boardwalk for almost a half an hour, watching a great blue heron act like he's going to fish. A photographer asks me how it's going. I say, "Have you ever heard of the sunk cost fallacy?" I don't think he's going to catch a fish while I'm here. Then again, there's a lot to be said for completely zoning out watching water move under your stationary post, looking at a beautiful wading bird.

• Oh, no. Oh, no.
• Oh my GOD.
• Jesus. DRAMATIC SCENES AT THE WETLAND.

BOTD: Canada goose.

Look, I am the last person to fault a snapping turtle for acting like a snapping turtle, but this was genuinely dramatic and traumatic, and I cried a little and I wasn't the only one.

So there has been a family of geese out here the last month, and they've made it for a while, a couple and their four goslings. Today I saw them all start across the middle pond, where the boardwalk splits. I'm on one side by myself, there are three women on the other side. We're all watching, because goslings are cute. The geese start to cross between us. The one of the goslings just...disappears. Yanked under the water.

It happens in an instant. There are four, and then there are three. We (me and the other three ladies) scream. It's clear that a turtle has taken one, right in front of us.

Now I admire a snapper, so in that moment I'm sad, but I'm also sure this is the end of that gosling. The mom and the three goslings swim out a little more into open water and I'm pretty sure they are already moving on with their lives.

And then the dad goes back to where the other one went down, and my friends, I have never seen anything like it in my life. This goose starts slapping the water, pounding the water, striking with his feet, and suddenly a beak breaks the water, and the adult goose slaps some more, screaming, flapping its wings, jumping up and down in the water, and a beak and head break the water again, the goose is in an absolute fury, flapping and pounding, the other adult and the three goslings watching from yards away, and then the gosling who had been nabbed breaks the surface completely, scrambles up and away and onto the marsh vegetation, the dad scrambles back to the other adult and babies, and the women on the other side and I are all jumping up and down, pumping fists, hooting and hollering. I think we've all actually been screaming the whole time.

I never laid eyes on the turtle. If I hadn't seen the gosling go down, I'd have had no idea what was happening, but goddamn if that goose didn't make that turtle give it back.

This was...incredible. I didn't know geese were like that, to be honest. The gosling was so obviously beat to shit, muddy, hurt, dragging a leg which was clearly broken, clearly how he got grabbed (I won't post pics with the leg because they make me sad.) He was absolutely exhausted too. I went to join the other women, and we were all very worried that the family would leave him, because he wasn't making any noise and they were all together now in the open water. Then after about five minutes rest, the little guy started crying and the family came in and they met in the middle and sailed away.

Later, on my way out, I saw them all together, firmly on ground, the whole family. One of the siblings was trying to help him clean up, a hopeless task. It was so sweet, that was when I cried a little. And then the gosling that had been attacked flapped his wings a little, and I felt like he might be okay. He was limping, but he could walk on it, and they were all together again.

Listen, man, when I post DRAMATIC SCENES AT THE WETLAND, you better believe I mean it. My heart was absolutely pounding. I could not believe a goose beat the ever-loving shit out of a turtle that never surfaced. Under the water he beat him. I cannot believe he made it give his gosling back. If it had been even a little bit younger it wouldn't have stood a chance.

I'm so glad the field trip didn't see it.