September 10, 2026

Where: Eakin Community Park

When: 5:45 pm

Bird Species: eastern bluebird, house finch, mourning dove, eastern wood pewee, American goldfinch, downy woodpecker, American redstart, northern cardinal, American crow

Things I Thought About:

• This evening I was thinking about homo erectus, and how much longer he was around than homo sapiens has been, and how every single thing about living in American in 2026 is at war with every single biological instinct we developed over the course of maybe 1.8 million years.
• I don't actually think I will be picking up that theme and running with it on my niche bird blog at 9pm on a Thursday, but that was the kind of shit I was thinking about. Even before Ronald Reagan ruined the entire world with the TRA we had lost the plot. I was trying to narrow in on some possible tipping points, and I think it was probably gunpowder.
• ANYWAY. I'm going to go to Delaware tomorrow and look for ibis in the rain, and people are so shocked when I tell them, no, but seriously, I will not be able to get online and troubleshoot a database in a swamp. There really is still such a thing as "out of cell phone range," and it's probably not that far from anywhere you're standing, actually.
• There are, as always, eastern bluebird lined up on the ballfield fence, and, plot twist, there are also small children in uniforms playing T-ball on the ballfields. They are very cute. The birds, and the T-ballers.

• As the weather gets cool enough to even consider it, I keep finding myself promising to come back some place when I have on long pants and long sleeves. Birding, for me, is more enjoyable when it isn't so choked with vegetation that bushwacking is hard. Sunny and 50 degrees for a high, that's bird weather.
• I manifested a male American redstart by telling my sister I'd love to show her one, but I missed the photo. Quick little guys.
• I hope I encounter some warblers tomorrow, but I'm more interested in the last of the summer birds. The biting and greenhead flies at the Hook are so bad in the summer I don't usually go, but someone posted sandhill cranes five days ago, and I've never seen one.

BOTD: American goldfinch. I thought at first it was a Tennessee warbler, but it became clear pretty quickly they were goldfinches, because there was big handful of them, and I never see one without seeing four. They kept flying off to another tree for a bit but always came back to this little buffet of burnweed, a plant I have learned the name of. It was fun to watch them, ripping out big clumps and nibbling away.