woodpeckers

October 23, 2026

Sara Kate Wilkinson

Sara Kate Wilkinson

— 4 min read
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October 23, 2026
Bird of the Day: northern flicker, my enemy. This photo is just a tease, scroll on to see how thoroughly I dominated this little bitch today.

Where: the neighborhood

When: 11:18 pm

Bird Species: black vulture (flyover), American robin, northern mockingbird, house sparrow, mourning dove, northern flicker, European starling, blue jay, white-breasted nuthatch, northern cardinal

Things I Thought About It:

  • I have been and continue to be swamped at work, but also I have had so much fun this week? Two separate dinners with fun friends, two triumphant pub quiz performances, a couple of [censored.] I am so tired, though? Having a social life is a young person’s game.
  • I am glad no one noticed that I sent yesterday's newsletter with the wrong date in the title. We won't discuss it.
  • I wish I was not being given so many meetings and tasks on a Friday. It is simply beautiful out. I need to be back at my desk at noon.
  • I mentioned that the porcelain berries were coming in, and there is a very lively collection of birds feasting today. This is great. Lovely, in fact; I’m glad I came out for it.
  • Oh, oh ohhhh. Dark-eyed juncos are back. Heart eyes, heart eyes, heart eyes. As with the white-throat sparrows, it’s a feeling like turning a corner on something that was weighing me down. They are such sweeties.
These guys travel in gangs, but this was the only one I caught today. I love their little pinky beaks in all that slate gray. Eye-catching birds. I have missed them. They'll be around my neighborhood for a good long while.
  • Starlings started to take on that gorgeous winter plumage, too. This is a good day to be out for a full daylight walk.
He was at the very tiptop of this tree. The photo doesn't do the iridescent green justice, but those fresh white tips are right on schedule.
  • Scream 3 has such a weak solution to the whodunnit, but Parker Posey is so fun it. Excited to check out Scream 4 tonight, of which I remember nothing at all. I maybe never saw it?
  • When the first Scream came out, I was walking out the door of my mom’s house and she asked where I was going and I said I was going to see Scream. She had no interest in slasher movies that I ever knew about, but she was very interested in hanging out with me, newly moved home from a pretty unhappy first try at adulthood, and she asked if she could come. We went, we loved it, when Scream 2 came out we went to see Scream 2, and again Scream 3, although by that time I was just visiting again. It tickles me so much, that we had this dumb thing that was our thing.
  • I just checked and I lost her in March the year Scream 4 dropped in April, so I bet tonight will be a first viewing. I did pick them up again in Scream 5, and my definitive review of that one was that Mom would have loved Jack Quaid.
  • Robins having an absolute feast today. They’re a fun little group in these bushes.
There were easily a half dozen, very close to me, noshing away fearlessly. The starlings were a little more skittish. I caught a couple of fun shots like this, with their mouth full.
  • I had a cocktail Wednesday night that was rye and benedictine, and it is currently a great sorrow in my life that I don’t have benedictine in my home bar. Who has benedictine? I barely know what that is.

BOTD: northern flicker. I caught him while he was seduced by beautiful berries, a literal honeypot. He's WEAK! I got him good!

Surely I have not had such luck with a flicker all year. I was dying to see the yellow shaft on his tail feathers, and he even let me see some of that, although not displayed the way I would have liked, and, being the bastard bird that he is, he posed on a light pole instead of a branch for it.

I was only six minutes late for my noon call, a triumph of professionalism over my every other natural human instinct.

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