June 28, 2026

Where: Huntley Meadows Park

When: 7:25 am

Bird Species: pileated woodpecker, great-crested flycatcher, green heron, great egret, mallard, hybrid duck (tent), wood duck, eastern bluebird, great blue heron, red-winged blackbird, osprey, downy woodpecker, blue-gray gnatcatcher, great egret, prothonotary warbler, eastern kingbird

Things I Thought About:

• It is dark out here.
• I can see a pileated woodpecker, a blue-gray gnatcatcher, and a bluebird, but no one else will be able to see them, because there is not enough light to focus a photo. It will be better on the boardwalk.
• There is a green heron in a tree, low and close, and he flew away the moment I dialed in the focus in all this gray and mist. Not a terrific start.
• When I was in school, I had a friend whose house was near an Elks Club, and she fully believed for the entirety of her youth that the "B.P.O.E." meant "Big Pile of Elks." This is now lore; every time I have seen an Elks club for forty years I have thought about the big pile of elks.

• I have been griping a lot about the summer birds being boring in my neighborhood, but I need to leave room to gripe about how birding in the summer is generally just harder, everywhere. You cannot come to Huntley and not see a bunch of good birds, but it is just tougher now, between unpredictable weather and bugs and heat and crowds and so much foliage. A month ago, I could see everything that was swimming in the second pond; now the only breaks in the shrubbery are small wedges with terrible sightlines. I used to describe birds as being "over" or "by" or "under" a landmark; now they are mostly "behind."
• Hey, this might be the Cayuga hybrid duck. Oh, I hope so! Hard to tell in this light, but I think that's her and so far, so good with a couple of ducklings.

• If the year in birding was expressed in waves like on an EEG, the June beats would be steadier but much, much slower. Higher highs, lower lows, longer flatlines.
• It is now fully raining. This is fine! I love the rain. But I worry about the camera. I had purchased a little rain covering for the camera and have been struggling with it for a year. I feel like this camera can probably get wetter than I ever allow it to get, but I have a fear of letting it get ruined and having to make payments on one again, and I know myself well enough to know that if that happens, I'll spend three times as much this time.
• Once again, the rain protection for the camera reveals itself to be a completely useless piece of gear, but I have cracked this nut anyway with, check out this hack, an umbrella.
• I am totally alone on the boardwalk, which is quite nice, but hopeless for photos. I am taking photos of the outlines of birds.

• I recently read a bunch of conspiracy theories as to why autocorrect has gotten so much worse, and they are all very plausible to me. It is wild that suddenly my talk-to-text is hearing "Byrd" when I say "bird." These notes are a mess.
• Now that's something I don't see too often: an osprey just chilling.

• I think I'm going to call it a morning. Uncommonly frustrating; one of those days where everywhere I look I'm just a second too late. It's the prothonotary warbler that broke me. It was so close, and so cute, and by the time I raised my camera to my face it was gone. This has happened more than once today, heron, yellowthroat, warbler.
• The worst day I ever spent here was still pretty great, but days like this do happen. Makes me appreciate the days where everywhere I look, I'm right on it. I'm due for one of those.
• Temperatures in the triple digits are predicted for several days this week, which also does not bode well for great content. Dog days. Summertime blues.

BOTD: great blue heron. About the only birds you could get a good look at today were the dinosaurs. A great blue heron is a phenomenal bird for just zoning out and watching for a long time. I saw him catch a crawfish and a fish, but the settings were out of whack. Once I put them back in order, I got several nice photos of this nice bird.

BONUS: This was a different heron I saw on the way out. Not nearly as close or as sharp, but I enjoyed the photobomb.