October 30, 2026

Where: Huntley Meadows Park

When: 1:50 pm

Bird Species: Carolina chickadee, white-breasted nuthatch, tufted titmouse, downy woodpecker, red-bellied woodpecker, wood duck, mallard, great egret, ruby-crowned kinglet, eastern bluebird, Carolina wren, northern cardinal, song sparrow, red-winged blackbird, white-throated sparrow, swamp sparrow, great blue heron, greater yellowlegs, Canada goose, house finch, yellow-rumped warbler

Things I Thought About:

• In the five days since I’ve visited, the leaves have shed to a shocking degree, opening new views into the woods and exposing the skeletal interiors of fallen trees. It is an insanely beautiful day, that stunning October blue sky, and yet the conditions are very tough for photos, between the glare on the water and the deep shade in the woods trail. In both spots, the wind is lovely. What a great day to visit the swamp.
• Fall migration, I think it is safe to say, is well and truly over. The winter residents are back, and I haven't seen a warbler in a couple of weeks, except for the butterbutts, which stay.

• There is a couple here on a date. They are posted up on the bench at the first pond. They are playing music on a speaker and drinking white wine from glass glasses. The man is telling her about a trial for which he was counsel, where he kept a development from being built. You can hear him, and the music, yards and yards away. If I could kill with my mind, he would be exploded all over the boardwalk.
• Chloe Petts would like to explode Richard Ayoade with their mind on this season of Taskmaster, and I get it.

• There are big gold and brown leaves falling and blowing in this wind one at a time, and in your peripheral vision a person can easily mistake the motion for that of a bird. I keep whirling with the camera raised, feeling as exposed and sheepish as I do when I almost shoot a civilian in Lethal Enforcer.
• Lethal Enforcer has probably not existed as an arcade game in three decades, but can I tell you something? I was very good at it.
• I love not being at work. It is so dark at 5:20 pm and next week it will be this dark at 4:20 pm. No one here is in a low-key panic about it.

BOTD: the great blue heron.

So full transparency, the conditions were bad for photos, but also there is no limit to the way I can fuck up my camera settings. Today I planted my butt down on the boardwalk to watch a heron fish, saw him catch three in a row, and then noticed that I had the dial cranked all the way up to Manual, but had not Manually set anything. The waste.

But, of course, not a waste at all. I sat on a boardwalk in the sun and the breeze in the middle of the afternoon and watched a heron fish. Pretty damn good.

By the time I got my settings adjusted he was about ready to move on, but I got a couple I liked.

It's really fascinating what a tremendous variety in pattern and coloration you can find in these birds. There was another heron hanging out in the back pond, and it almost looks like a different species of bird. I really like them.