March 9, 2026

Where: the neighborhood

When: 5:20pm

Bird Species: house sparrow, house finch, American robin times a billion, blue jay, mourning dove, song sparrow, Carolina chickadee, common grackle, European starling, northern mockingbird, northern cardinal

Things I Thought About:

• My word, I am beat. I forgot how much of a first day at work is just logging into new stuff and being friendly on Teams. 
• Ahhhhh yes, this is it. This is the weather. I can’t believe there will be another 90 minutes of this. 
• I am worried I won’t get a photo tomorrow. I have to figure out what the commute does to me on Tuesdays, since I’ll be leaving for the Metro in the dark for a month or so. No time after work tomorrow, since it is pub quiz night, WHERE, by the way, my sister and I WILL be playing in the quarterfinals this weekend.
• While I am backing up to frame a mockingbird, a woman behind me says “Hi, this is Hugo.” Hugo is very small and very cute and is hiding behind her legs. She says “I told him if we saw you today he could tell you he saw a bird.” I have never met the grownup or the child, you understand. The grown up, whose name I did not catch, says that at Hugo’s  house it is understood that I am a lady who listens for birds and then takes their picture.
• I love this so much I could cry. Neighborhood eccentric, the kind that eventually becomes the elderly neighbor you check on during a heat wave, my final form.
• “An’ it was a BROWN bird,” says Hugo. I hope to receive his regular reports. 

• I am excited at the prospect of adding some thumbnails photos to the blog that have a dang blue sky in them.
• I wasted quite a lot of the remaining daylight trying to get a good shot of this grackle snacking. I wish I was as tall as a tree.

• If I was as tall as a tree, I wouldn’t get any job. I’d just be a tree all day.
• Say hello, Pinky.

• [whispering] don’t make a big deal about it, but Pinky has a lady in the same tree with him today

BOTD: Carolina chickadee. I always like it when I catch a bird snacking, and this guy eats cute food, too. They are so small, it always feels like a victory to even see them from the ground, never mind to get a good shot. And just look at that blue sky.

Sorry if you have trouble with this time change! I truly suffer at fall back, but I have the birder's advantage here, where I regularly get up in the dark already, to make the drive to a refuge before the birds wake up. I'm just delighted with the longer days, so that having to actually learn a new job doesn't mean I'll never see a bird on the weekdays.