March 31, 2026

Where: Ranger Road Park

When: 5:30pm

Bird Species: American robin, hairy woodpecker, Carolina wren, Carolina chickadee, northern cardinal, eastern bluebird, European starling, pileated woodpecker, great blue heron

Things I Thought About:

• I am thinking about famed Italian explorer, mountaineer, and handsome devil Reinhold Messner.  I first encountered this man as an unbelievably stylish and charming talking head in an absurd little basic cable documentary called Yeti or Not?  I could not get enough of his hair and his neck scarves and the photos of him as a much younger man in the mountains.
• Then I looked him up, and found out he’s a world-famous, absolutely renowned mountain climber, the first to do Everest without supplemental oxygen, has summited all 14 of the 8000-footers, just a towering giant in the pursuit. Also, a Bigfoot enthusiast. Incredible guy.
• Me falling for a beautiful Yeti crackpot, and discovering I’m not good enough for him.
• Now in his 80s and possessor of a wild and melancholy Instagram account, which updated today, and is top of mind right now. As my friend James said, “‘I thought I’d have died in the mountains by now’ is a vibe.” 
• I have never been here before, and God knows what kind of birds will be around in this tiny little neighborhood park, but it is between the metro stop and pub quiz, and I have 35 minutes to take a nice picture. 
• Well, okay! There are hairy woodpeckers everywhere, and robins, and oh! An eastern bluebird. I never see those around my neighborhood, and I can’t think why, but I never do. What a treat.
• And that wren is behaving beautifully for me. I’ve heard that one in my neighborhood all day every day for weeks, and he is always too high or backlit and I haven’t yet gotten a photo I’m happy with, but these should be good. What a sweet little yellow bird.

• A woman on the bridge asks me, in a thick and musical West African accent, if I have encountered those two woodpeckers. “The black and white ones?” “And red!” Yes, I say, there are two hairy woodpeckers chasing each other, the males have the red on their nape, but they are both black and white, I confidently state, having watched two of them chasing and teasing each other for a bit.
• I cross over the bridge after this pleasant exchange and immediately encounter a pileated in the road. Annnnnnd, there’s the other one. I was sure I was correctly informing that woman, but now I want to find her and say “Oh, wait, my bad, I just hadn’t seen them yet!’
• I cannot believe how many lovely birds I have seen in 32 minutes. There’s a great blue heron here, in what is essentially a drainage ditch.

• Maybe Tuesdays won’t be bad and boring on days I can get out of DC on time.

BOTD: pileated woodpecker. Another case where a popular animated cartoon bird is quite shockingly true to life, in both look and sound. The males have a red cheek stripe, which I can't remember if Woody does. The male was staying close to the ground this evening, while I found the female higher in a tree a ways away. Neither were doing their distinctive flight call or I would have crossed the bridge earlier to chase them down.

A man at Huntley last week pronounced it "PIE-lated" and I had a shock of fear that I have been saying it wrong all this time, but it is, in fact, "PILL-e-ay-ted." You should have heard how I pronounced "prothonotary warbler" before I heard enough people say it.