June 3, 2026

Where: Eakin Community Park

When: 5:45 pm

Bird Species: European starling, eastern bluebird, house sparrow, white-breasted nuthatch

Things I Thought About:

• I have been fully out of my mind this week. We won't discuss it.
• What a nice little bluebird family! I bet they'll be bird of the day. I wish one would go to a tree, though.
• I used to think the worst conduct in a public outdoor space was taking calls and having loud one-sided phone conversations on the trail, but now I think it's just playing music at all. Taking a phone call is wild because that's your personal business, but bebopping along like you're the DJ of the universe is wildly entitled behavior. Nobody wants to hear Journey right now.
• Once I saw a great blue heron in this tiny pond, and one time a green heron, and once I saw a belted kingfisher here, and several times there have been mallards. Just turtles today, though. Nothing wrong with that.
• At the swamp this weekend a mother confidently told her child a green heron was a kind of duck, and like the hero that I am I said nothing.
• There are two nuthatches! I feel like I haven't seen one in a while, at least around the neighborhood. Such a cute bird.

• The niece helped me find my first downy woodpecker right on this stretch of trail and we both jumped up and down and high-fived when I found it and listed it. She seems impossibly older now, even though it was only two and half years ago. Middle school years are science fiction, the morphing, the time travel, the changes.
• Speaking of which, I suppose I must go to the end-of-the-year orchestra concert now.

BOTD: eastern bluebird. What can I say, they are such a great songbird.

I don't usually like taking photos of birds on wires, or birds on chain link fences, either, really, but there is a specific photo I love, which is birds on athletic field backstops/outfield fences. And it is surprisingly likely place to see a bird! Now that I've mentioned it, you'll notice it. A bird on a regular fence isn't the same. There is something about the aesthetic of a wild creature perched on top of a fence that is designed to create a wide-open empty space behind it that is very appealing to me.

There was a small flock, five or six, flying around the empty fields this evening, most especially a pair with a juvenile. The dad is in the featured photo up top, in profile you can see his colors are much more developed and brighter than the others.

Unlike almost every other bird, in my opinion the young ones never go through an awkward stage. They are cute chicks, and as they age their gray feathers eventually lighten up and turn buff and warm brown, but the gray is a lovely mottle and they stay looking very cute the whole time.

It was lovely to see a little family together. I hope this is like growing up with a pack of aunts and uncles and cousins.