March 20, 2026

Where: the neighborhood

When: 7:30am

Bird Species: northern cardinal, American robin, northern mockingbird, European starling, northern flicker, American crow, common grackle, white-breasted nuthatch, downy woodpecker, house sparrow, blue jay, Carolina chickadee

Things I Thought About:

• Oh, it is just a beautiful morning. I wish I had more time to skive off and enjoy it. I must develop a new weekday routine that accommodates both “I must do my morning walk for the exercise” and also “If I am outside and I hear a Carolina wren, I must be allowed to spend 20 extra minutes tracking it down.” The latter was very available to me in my previous long-term job, but now much less so, and quite suddenly I am always watching the time. I'll figure it out, but I'm not in a rhythm yet. 
• Even while minding the clock, though, it feels so good to turn a corner on a chilly morning and feel the sun now warming a different plane of your body. I walk a block that is an almost perfect square, so I’m just a rotisserie chicken, browning for around 10-12 minutes a side.
• I think if they started paying attention to it, a lot of people would be shocked at how large American crows are. A lot of crows are fish crows, and they're just another largish black bird, but American crows are the size of hawks. bigger than some.
• Hey, bitch, I see you! 

• I feel like I should apologize for always swearing at all the birds, but it is my understanding that people are charmed by my mildly antagonistic relationship with my hobby. A hobby which actively tries to fly away from me while I pursue it.
• The other key here is that every trip out with the camera is part of a marathon. I have said I will do this every day this year. There will for sure be days when I have 15 minutes, or don’t have my camera with me when I see the best bird, or when my mind is completely empty and there’s nothing to post. It happens. 365 birds is a lot of birds.
• That mockingbird is really doing his thing. Just sitting up at the top of a telephone pole (not worth a photo) rolling through every call he knows. It's honestly amazing how many birds he can imitate. And he does it at length and at volume, mixing the mimicry in with his song. It's really quite something to hear. Everybody's favorite, a medley!
• Boy, do you know, I actually love the idea of 365 birds. I have quit a lot of things! Why keep trying stuff if you aren’t instantly good at it, is my motto. But I am enchanted with the vision of getting to New Year’s Eve and being able to scroll backwards through the home page and watch all the featured photos cycle back through winter gray to autumn oranges and gold, to big green summer, to spring blooms and blue sky. and back to winter gray. 
• I think one of the reasons birding as a hobby sneaks up on people as they get older is because it’s a chance to experience the turning of the seasons, the passage of real time, and feel something other than regret or mild panic.
• “The days are long, but the years are short” is true every day, until you challenge yourself to really notice and register the day, every day. Then the year gets long again. You can even look forward to it.

BOTD: downy woodpecker. Unlike the flicker, I did not have to catch this woodpecker on the sly. He just flew in and got to work on a tree branch directly above the street sign, not 30 feet away from me. A tree which, by the way, is about to burst into full glorious bloom.

He was really working away and I was able to stop and watch for a minute or two. He got pretty deep in that limb. I kept hoping I’d see him come up with a bug, but I, very hatefully, had an 8:30AM call today and had to move on. I hope he caught a big one.