backyard birds

March 5, 2026

Sara Kate Wilkinson

Sara Kate Wilkinson

— 3 min read
March 5, 2026
Bird of the Day: American robin. Stunning backdrop of dead trees and gray. Makes you wanna be there.

Where: the neighborhood

When: 7:44am

Bird Species: European starling, American robin, mourning dove, northern cardinal, white-throated sparrow, house sparrow. Seen but not heard: almost everybody.

Things I Thought About:

  • Oh, good. Perfect conditions, for photos.
  • Well, I predict the bird of the day will be a mourning dove or a blue jay, since they are the only ones I’ll be able to see. Mourning doves are the biggest of the backyard birds around here, and the jay will pop with color, but everything else is just outlines.
Good job, dove, way to be two feet away.
  • A mom and a boy are walking to the elementary school through the fog also. The kid yells “Are you bird watching?” “Sure am, but it’s hard on a day like today!” “I don’t like fog!” “I don’t mind it, but it’s hard to see colors!” “I like blue birds!” “Me too! Hear that bird yelling?" “Yeah?”  “That’s a blue jay!” “Oh, yeah!” All of this at top volume, at 50 feet distance, through what the weather app describes as Dense Fog, while his mom just listens and smiles. This has cheered me up immensely.
  • Do you know what? I’m kind of chuffed to discover that I am much better at identifying bird by silhouette than I was a year ago. This is like a puzzle in Highlights magazine, but I think I’m getting most of them.
Unedited: all starlings, I think. Upper left might be a robin, but the beak seems to be starling.
Yep! Not a robin, matching beak, no orange color at all. That one has completely lost his winter coloring.
I'm gonna say lady cardinal, the tail is right.
whoo hoo! nailed it!
A sparrow, but I don't think it's a house sparrow. White throat?
Probably! I see color on the cap. Getting near the end for them. It would cool if I could actually fucking see one.
  • In all sincerity, I think birding is the first time since my first time attempt at college where I got interested in something, started doing it a lot, and eventually became proficient at it. This is not to be taken lightly. Opportunities to learn simply for the love of learning dissipate with age. It's not learning anymore, it's training. For what, you tell me.
  • I took basic college courses in 2015, because I had the time and the money and the freedom, and really thought I’d finally earn a college degree in my forties. It feels insane to me now. Imagine being 42, sitting in a room full of undergraduates, learning that Trump had won his first election. I was in Biology 1002. None of the eighteen-year-olds were bothered at all. Earlier in the semester I had said in an English class, in dead seriousness, that I didn’t know what the world was coming to when college kids don’t hate cops anymore, and I think my professor, easily 10 years my junior, was quite shocked. I wonder what he thinks now.
  • Okay, well, this morning is hopeless. The phone now says "Hazy" but I don't have time to wait it out.
  • Today is my last day at work and I am being taken out for drinks after. I wonder if I’ll be able to write this up later, or if I will be too buzzed. (Note: I am a little buzzed but think this went rather well, actually; it's only 9:15 and if you see a typo, no you didn't.)

BOTD: the American robin, best described today as "visible."

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