May 24, 2026

Where: the neighborhood

When: 3:40 pm

Bird Species: gray catbird, American robin, blue jay, house sparrow, house finch. northern cardinal, cedar waxwing, northern flicker, song sparrow, American crow, common grackle, northern mockingbird

Things I Thought About:

• I snuck out of the sleepover at 12:30 am, absolutely guiltlessly, because obviously they were all still awake and wished me good night and a safe drive. Those kids are all right.
• The other two grownups were asleep, though.
• It is very liberating to become an adult and discover that the ideal bedtime is 9:45 am.
• Some more liberating discoveries of adulthood are 1) you do not have to shave your legs if you want to get a pedicure and 2) no need to hang on to it, they will bring you duck sauce and hot mustard every time you order Chinese.
• Maybe I should rebrand as one of those absolutely insufferable, “I don’t know who needs to hear this but...” social media accounts.
• Ah, yes. See a flicker, post a flicker. And here is the yellow shaft showing in flight, the way I've always wanted to capture it. What. a. photo. this will be.

• I don't know who needs to hear this, but you are not going to use the rest of that can of tomato sauce. It costs 65 cents; cut out the middleman and trash it.
• I don’t know who needs to hear this, but it is okay to be catastrophically upset by a bad haircut. You wear it every day!
• In one of those paperback horror anthologies that were all over in the 80s, there was a story called A Demon in Rosewood, about a series of buyers driven mad by a face that appeared in the wood pattern of an armoire or some such. I remember thinking at the time that it was the most boring story in the collection, but I now suspect it was an homage to Poe or Wilkie Collins.
• Anyway, I think about it every time I pass this tree. About 40% of the occasions I walk past it, I think that boll is moving, not with a demon, but with a bird. Sometimes I even cross the street to make sure there is nothing there. There is never anything there.

• It has been a minute since I made the regular neighborhood loop, and the couple who own the white shih tzu mix stop to ask where I've been. This feels lovely.
• They are appalled that I have to get from our neighborhood to downtown DC three days a week, which, girl, same.
• A song sparrow is a perfect little bird. Perfect look, perfect song. Might be edging out the white-throated for my favorite sparrow, although doubtless that will change when they come back in the winter. But certainly, my favorite sparrow right now.

• It's meant to rain all day tomorrow. I think I'll go see the sheep movie.

BOTD: common grackle, being a good dad.

I was walking past a house when I saw a brown head pop up out of the bushes. I said, oh, brown-headed cowbird, but then it moved further out into the open and I saw that it was brown all over, and I was absolutely stumped. It didn't look like any bird I knew, and this is just the neighborhood, so unlikely to have exotics.

Then this beautiful glossy blue grackle came over, and that smaller brown bird hopped down, opened his mouth as wide as he could, and screamed. Very dinosaur. It's no surprise that they have to grow into their iridescence, but I was interested to see that there's no hint of that bright yellow eye yet in the juvenile.

The adult grackle was just pulling up food like he didn't have a kid following him around the whole time, screaming for food. Every second or third worm or bug, he'd stick his head in the juvenile's mouth and share, and in general he looked for all the world like an exasperated parent ignoring a child's tantrum.

I could have watched it all day. As it is, I watched until they crossed the front and went in the backyard and I was twenty minutes late for game night.

One more important update: I know you've been worried sick about it, so I will share that I got another haircut this morning and it looks good now. We can all breathe a sigh of relief and start feeling better about ourselves for the holiday.