March 26, 2026

Where: Cross County Trail at Eakin Community Park

When: 5:35pm

Bird Species: northern cardinal, white-throated sparrow, American robin, downy woodpecker, eastern phoebe, tufted titmouse, red-bellied woodpecker, Carolina chickadee, pileated woodpecker, white breasted nuthatch

Things I Thought About:

• The little yellow flowers along the trail are quite pretty, although it is only a matter of days before I’m complaining every day about the pollen.
• That downy woodpecker is drumming that tree while in a headstand. I've seen them scavenging head down, but never actually saw one drum like that before.

• I think I have said twice now on the blog that I must start doing my Achilles PT again, but have I done it even one time? I have not.
• I don’t think this particular park is ever going to work for me this time of day. It’s less a park than a long stretch of the Cross County Trail, and the trees are tall all along it, so it doesn’t get the benefit of the longer daylight. There are a million birds around, but photos are close to hopeless.
• I am hearing a blue jay, a phoebe, a red-shouldered hawk, a thousand chickadees, and a pileated woodpecker. What I am seeing is cardinals.
• These titmice and chickadees are making me so mad I could spit. They are so little and so loud, and they are making so much buzzy noise, and you think "where ARE they, they have to be close" and they are, but 30 feet overhead.

• Someone described my blog as “a bird blog for people who do not care about birds,” which I quite like, but I do actually need to get a photo of a goddamn bird.
• Earlier today in a notebook I found a list I made in December of things I wanted for myself in 2026. Not resolutions to make, per se, but just kind of manifesting, a vision of myself in the coming year. Do you know, I’m not doing too bad? I'm pleased with myself.
• New job? Check. Online hangouts with my remote friends? Check. Keeping my fingernails in good shape, and not peeling the polish off with my teeth when it starts to chip? Check. Do something with all the bird facts and thoughts and photos I’m collecting? Check.
• I have done exactly nothing about any of the stretching or the resistance training or the healthy eating, of course. The “do a bird walk every day” is the only thing keeping this bag of bones together.
• A pileated woodpecker will kind of false start, rev up into its call, like when you pull the starter on a chainsaw a couple of times before it roars into action. I have been hearing those starter noises all evening, and finally they screamed into flight, a pair of them, a million miles away and with the setting sun directly behind them. 
• I don’t actually think there is going to be a bird of the day. All these photos are going to be bad, and the birds I'm actually into tonight are being complete dildoes.

BOTD: the tufted titmouse. You cannot see his tuft. There were half a dozen of these guys, and I got exactly three photos, and you can't see a tuft in any of them. Contrary little beast. At least you can see how his little bill looks exactly like a pencil lead, something I really like about them. Not as much as I like their freaking tuft, but still.

I do like this bird. Early in the walk I identified him as my target for the BOTD, and it's humbling that this is as good as it gets when I'm actually trying. The only other contender was the pileated, and I never laid a glove on him.