lifers

September 12, 2026

Sara Kate Wilkinson

Sara Kate Wilkinson

— 5 min read
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September 12, 2026
Bird of the Day: sandhill crane. Lifer. Are there more dramatic photos to come? You better believe it.

Where: Bombay Hook NWR, Leipsic, DE

When: 7:30 am - 11:20 am

Bird Species: red-winged blackbird, great blue heron, great egret, mallard, American black duck, lesser yellow legs, semipalmated plover (lifer), American avocet, laughing gull, ring-billed gull, blue-winged teal, northern harrier, Canada goose, mute swans (I misidentified the swans yesterday), double-crested cormorant, gray catbird, peregrine falcon, lesser yellowlegs, eastern phoebe, sandhill crane (lifer)

Things I Thought About:

  • I passed a billboard that said LOOK UP JOHN 14:6 and, like, no? Sir, you bought a billboard. Just print the verse. You are failing at evangelism.
  • The bugs are already murderous. You just cannot leave the paved wildlife drive at all without getting swarmed. This is disappointing, because I like small birds more than I like shorebirds, and you simply can't go on the woods trails where they are.
  • For three years I've been watching everyone on the Facebook pages talk about how the bugs make this place basically unvisitable from April to the first frost, and I took it as absolute gospel, but then I got a few summers of birding under my belt and decided I had to see for myself, and yeah, this place is going to have to be winter only for me. I don't know why I thought getting more experience at birding would make me less bite-able? Sara Kate, expert birder, walking between the mosquitoes like Neo walking between bullets.
  • Oh, that's cool. That's lovely, actually. A sizable flock of American avocets have flown in in a cloud. They are such a funny, delicate bird. Ballerinas, all angles and long thin legs and long thin bills, and straight lines down their back when they bend.
At a terrible distance for detail, but I wanted to share in case you aren't familiar with the species. Avocets are a kind of stilt, a well-named class of bird. They are distinguished by that upward curve in their bill. See what I mean about the straight lines when they bend? They dig their food out of the mudflats, and they genuinely remind me of dancers when they do it. I could watch them for hours (if I wasn't under constant attack by biting flies.)
  • So far today I have engaged in my enemy, research, and realized I misidentified the swans yesterday. But I have also confirmed my ID on the small shorebirds around here, and they are semipalmated plovers, and they are lifers.
  • You know, birds can fly, it's one of their most prominent characteristics, actually, and yet I'm always tickled and amazed to see great blue herons perched up in the green.
Despite the frustrations of this outing, I did have a moment of "how many other people are looking at nine or more great blue herons right now?" and was able to thank the universe for that opportunity, anyway.
  • "I can't roll down the window, and if I open the car door, some mosquitoes will get in, but if that peregrine falcon stays where he is, it will be worth it" and then when I close the car door the falcon flies away. This also happened with the harrier. I'm losing.
  • I came here to find those cranes, but I'm just not having a good time. I'm going to swing by the visitor center, make one more loop, and then move on.
  • I physically recoil from the mirror in the restroom. I truly cannot believe how terrible I always look at this, the one thing I leave the house to do. Some women can put on a bandana and channel Jennifer Garner, planting flowers in overalls, sunny and wholesome. And then there's me, middle aged aunt, sweaty and little puffy from allergies, channeling Steven Van Zandt.
  • oh my God holy shit there they are
  • I was going to leave.

BOTD: sandhill cranes, life list for me. Full transparency, I didn't have to do shit to find these cranes except pull up behind the other two cars that were looking, but I do think I have to give myself some credit for giving it two extra loops. These were literally the two specific birds I went to the Hook this weekend to see.

When I first pull up, they are kind of digging around in the tall grains on the shoreline, and they have their backs to us, facing the water, and we just have to be patient and see if they make their way along the shore to where we can see them better.

Which they then do. Not only did I get to see these guys, but some pretty dramatic poses, even. I am very aware it was pure dumb luck.

So as the discerning reader will have, um, discerned, I have been having a not great time the last couple of months, and I have lately been consciously trying to vibe on a frequency where I am recognizing the small wins and the small joys, and only tuning in to things coming my way on that same channel. And one of those is that the wind came up while I was in the visitor center, so on that last loop I was able to stand on the side of the road for ten minutes watching these cranes and only got bit once, and then those two birds, both those birds, did that right in front of me. It made me so, so happy.

I did tool over to Maryland for a bit after to check out my favorite reserve on that side on the peninsula. Turned out the juice wasn't worth the squeeze on that detour, but I did pick up my fourth life bird of the weekend, and few nice shots of a BOTD I'll be excited to share with you tomorrow. I won't be birding tomorrow; I might not leave my house tomorrow. I am weary and bug bit and a little sunburnt, but altogether feeling like time well spent.

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