October 10, 2026

Where: Hidden Oaks Nature Center

When: 2:04 pm

Bird Species: blue jay, tufted titmouse, mourning dove, white-breasted nuthatch, red-bellied woodpecker, Carolina chickadee, American robin, American Crow

Things I Thought About:

• The inflammation in my Achilles is very much down, and I am allowed to start building back up my walking. I could not stand on the one bad foot for 30 seconds. I think we were all disappointed in that, but I still plan to get some steps in today.
• Standing on one foot is sometimes difficult when two medical professionals aren’t watching me and a holding a stopwatch. 
• Immediately upon entering the park, I fall into conversation with a Fairfax County Master Naturalist. By the time the conversation was over, I think I have volunteered to take photos of native plants in very stages of their life cycle over the course of eight months in 2027? That woman was maybe 80 years old and amazing; she could have taken my watch.
• I think a lot of people would be surprised by how much color mourning doves can have, ochres and roses as well as dark gray and brown tones. This is one of the more uniformly cafe-au-lait-colored ones I’ve seen. Very striking on his perch.

• There is a troop of Boy Scouts of some variety doing some sort of potting soil project under the pavilion behind the nature center, where there's a reliably popular collection of bird attractants. A pileated woodpecker drums very loudly, very close, and four of the scouts chorus “A woodpecker!” and run out to find it None of us lay eyes on it, but this happens again five minutes later. Very fun.
• My fitness tracker has asked for significantly less of me this month, but it did just buzz, and this is for sure the first time Ive gotten 4800 steps in a row since the ankle thing started.
• A couple of those scouts are super into birds. It’s quiet back here, in this area around the bird boxes. They aren’t raising their voices at all, but I can clearly here them note it aloud when they spot one, “Nuthatch,” “Titmouse.”
• A movie I had never seen until last week is The Good, the Bad and The Ugly, and I have not stopped thinking about the unimpeachable vibes. I was sure there could be no surprises, it's been referenced so much, that music has been used so much, the costume is a classic, but boy, oh, boy, it knocked me over.
• When I think of Ennio Morricone, though, I think of something completely different different, the oboe piece from The Mission score, which was and still is one of the pieces I think about when fantasizing deeply about being a ballet dancer.
• When I fantasize about being an Olympic figure skater my piece is, of course, Janis Joplin's cover of Summertime. More points because it's kind of slow, but you can really hear the jumps in it.
• I’ve been hearing a chickadee mixed in somewhere with this little flock of titmice (titmouses?) and the next time he brrrrrs it’s weirdly eerie when, in the millisecond I spot him, a boy scout says “Chickadee.” Spooky Season.

BOTD: tufted titmouse. There was a very active little mixed flock of white-breasted nuthatches, chickadees, and titmouse out and about. I think the staff must have recently refreshed the bird stations. Easily five at least of the titmouses (titmice?) and nuthatches, and two chickadees in the mix just to keep my ears on their toes, to mix a metaphor. They were all great to watch, but I spent so much of the spring and early summer just hoping a titmouse would come down lower that I can't miss the opportunity when they were low like this today.

You can't tell from their photos, but they are little badasses. Birds that are very cute but also have a pack of cigarettes rolled up in their tshirt sleeve.