September 20, 2026
Where: Lake Accotink Dam
When: 4:45 pm
Bird Species: great blue heron, Canada goose, green heron, bald eagle
Things I Thought About:
- The usual Sunday scary stuff, but a pretty mild case. Normally my Sunday birds are part of a long walk, but today I am feeling sleepy and lazy, and I decide to hell with it, and just sit on a bench and enjoy the gray skies and people watching.
- The dam here is pretty ugly and dirty, but there is a very beautiful heron fishing in it. I don't see any other birds on my level, by the dam proper, but a lot of traffic flying in.
- Yesterday I got a little evangelical while talking about birding as a hobby, and this is kind of exactly what I was getting at. I could be 80 years old or disabled or illiterate and be having this exact same experience. It's very cool how watching or listening to big, beautiful creatures in flight is available to everyone.
- Tomorrow is the first day of autumn. Or the day after tomorrow? It's never been clear to me if the equinox is the first or the last day. In any event, I checked the weather app and there are 12 hours and 44 minutes of daylight tomorrow. This feels awful to me, but I'm excited about going to bed at 9 pm on the regular again.
BOTD: great blue heron. I see humans fish out of this sluice channel in front of the dam all the time, which is a little off-putting to me. But watching this beauty walk up and down the ledge, searching for a fish to grab, was deeply soothing. He never found one, at least while I was there, but still, time well spent.
