backyard birds

June 29, 2026

Sara Kate Wilkinson

Sara Kate Wilkinson

— 2 min read
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June 29, 2026
Bird of the Day: mourning dove. You will be so grateful for this pretty little Easter basket photo when you read what's coming later.

Where: the neighborhood

When: 6:05 pm

Bird Species: house sparrow, house finch, European starling, fish crow, mourning dove, song sparrow, gray catbird, northern cardinal

Things I Thought About:

  • "Ensorcelled" is an excellent word, as is "besotted."
  • Use is in a sentence: "Everywhere Jessica Fletcher goes, she encounters some besotted literary agent or professor from her past."
  • My Murder, She Wrote reboot has Andie McDowell solving murders in fine linen boat outfits in some gated island community in South Georgia or the Carolinas. I like how she's settling into the role of "Southern wraith."
  • Well, I've had the camera set on Portrait Mode the whole time I've been out. These will be weirdly exposed and likely blurry. At least the sun is out.
What a cacophony of colors this turned out to be, by accident! That is a massive bug, too. Starlings are fucking cool.
  • When Andie MacDowell went fully gray on a red carpet for the first time, the instagram comments were full of men saying it was such a shame, it really ages her. The woman is 68 years old, how young is she supposed to look.
  • Obviously, this natural-hair-positivity only goes for Andie MacDowell, a preternaturally beautiful woman. I myself am in the cycle of deciding to let mine grow in gray, trying it for a few weeks past the usual time when I would re-up my medium chocolate brown, and then being unable to think of anything else but how I am not old enough yet to go completely gray, and how I must immediately color my hair.
  • I definitely am old enough to go completely gray. And I started going gray at 22. I was 70% gray at 35. This is genetics, and I will fight it until I die, likely early, also due to genetics.
  • Well, there's no getting past it now that I thought about it: mourning doves kind of look like a penis.
  • Resemble penis. Are reminiscent of.

BOTD: Mourning dove. Listen.

He can't believe I told you that.

I'm sorry, I also hate my brain, but he's sweet and silly and rosy-pink and wrinkled, what else am I supposed to think. It's probably just the angle.

I like this bird! Every time I see one, I think about how they have more color than one might guess, but once you think "flesh-colored" the only options are "non-aggressive dick" and "Mr. Bigglesworth from Austin Powers."

WELP. There go some subscribers. Please enjoy a nice little photo of a girl dove on the sidewalk. She doesn't look like that at all.

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