May 17, 2026

Where: Brookfield Park

When: 4:50 pm

Bird Species: red-winged blackbird, European starling, house sparrow, yellow-rumped warbler, American robin, northern cardinal, blue jay

Things I Thought About:

• When The Niece was little, four or five or six, we’d have Sunday night supper at the other aunt’s house and then go for a walk around this little park after dinner. Sunday Night Adventure Walk. The child loved seaweed and turtles and goslings.
• I still get photos all the time of present day Niece in this park with her beloved cousins Mac and Lucy, the dogs. I will never catch the other aunt in her affections, because she has two big dogs. At Sunday evening supper, sometimes mid-bite, the girl will suddenly stand up from the dinner table to go hug and pet one of the dogs. We all accept the breech of etiquette as an uncontrollable impulse.
• You know, if a red-wing blackbird is going to fuck up the atmosphere with his maniacal screams, the least he can do is flare those red shoulder patches. I am trying to be Sunday evening melancholy, here.

• Last night I accidentally poured drain opener down a drain that I recently also had poured down bleach. I then spent several minutes trying to work up some concern about this. “I don’t know if I just created deadly chlorine gas, but I am NOT dealing with this tonight.”
• I did fire off a “just in case” text to my sister, just like I did when I had an allergic reaction to a medication and worried my tongue might choke me in my sleep.

• I truly hope I die before I get dementia and I’m doing shit like this all the time. To have a text like this be my actual last text would, as the girl just confirmed the kids still say, be cringe.
• There's a large picnic pavilion at this very small park, and every time I'm here there's some huge family gathering in the pavilion, and there is always a little cluster of teens gathered on the railroad tie steps on the other side of the pond, still in eyesight of their older relatives, but having what are obviously deep and private conversations. It's a very wholesome dynamic, and I try not to intrude, but a blue jay just flew by with something in her mouth and I need to know where she's going.
• The Niece will be thirteen on Tuesday. This feels...impossible.

BOTD: blue jay. I tracked the one down, all the way back to the original side of the pond, where they met up with their partner (I have never been able to tell a male jay from a female but I am comfortable saying there was one of each.) They were hanging out in a tree very near the well-trafficked path to the picnic shelter, and very low in that tree. I assume they were waiting for everyone else to leave before they went back to their nest, so as not to give the location away to lookie-loos like me. It was nice to see them so close and to get such a nice look at their gorgeous back and tail plumage.

This was really nice. It is rare to have a photo session with a bird where you don't feel like it is about to get away from you. This was a good start/nice wrap to the birds this week, depending on how you look at your weekends.