October 19, 2026
Where: the neighborhood
When: 1:47 pm - 2:10 pm
Bird Species: house sparrow, northern mockingbird, mourning dove, European starling
Things I Thought About:
- Ah, yes, the ideal and perfect conditions for a bird walk: fleeing my desk in the middle of the work day before I say “motherfucker” in a Teams channel.
- The degree to which my job is just translating shit between parties who do not fucking listen
- Ugh, people should not work, that’s my new standard position, like fiiiiine, I need a roof over my head, I’ll do it, but I certainly won’t like it.
- A northern mockingbird is a bird I can usually depend on to strike a pose, but that one has buried himself at the tippy top of a winterberry holly tree to preen and he looks like shit. This is kind of what I should expect on the day.
- [has three glasses of white wine at dinner with a close friend] see the only problem is that we have built our entire society around a premise that is exactly at odds with 800 million years of human instinct, and that’s why going outside and noticing that the winterberry hollies are budding is good and putting on a lanyard and going to an office is bad
- OTOOH (the other other hand, my third hand) its embarrassing to be such a very simple creature that a few minutes of sunlight and a glass of ice water has pretty much fixed me. Seeing a beautiful speckled starling didn’t hurt.
- Nobody here is pre-planning for how much the time change in two weeks is going to be completely debilitating.
BOTD: mourning dove. They are such funny little clown princes. What a sweet bird. Look how silly. Bette Davis eyes.
No one can tell I am writing up this blog after four glasses of pinot grigio.
