Sometime last month I was talking to another birder (I forget who) about the predicted irruption of Red-breasted Nuthatches for this fall. Already a few had been reported in the county and around the state. Neither of us had seen or heard one. "I'm not worried about it," he said, because he figured he'd eventually run into one. So did I. But it made me think of the weakness of words, how diluted they can get.
I'm worried. I'm worried about the health care and social security. I'm worried about a botched vaccine. I'm worried about the future of democracy. I'm worried about armed insurrection. I'm worried, to sum it up, about Doomsday. Armageddon. Really. Whether or not a little gray/blue bird with a red breast toots "yank yank yank" somewhere in my vicinity is not one of my larger concerns.
Still, today I did hear one, walking around Colliers Mills for the first time in more than a month. Whitesbog has been very quiet since we flipped the calendar, just as it got really active last month on the first of the month. So I decided to see if there was an influx of birds somewhere else. And hearing the nuthatch (I couldn't find it today, but I'm not worried, eventually I'll see one) did make me happy for a moment or two. It's why we play games: to distract us from real life. And if you're listing birds and counting birds, it's really nothing more than a game that you get to play by your own rules.
The nuthatch was just about the only bird of interest there. A large kayak event on Turnmill Pond probably kept any birds away and the police shooting range was active so I stayed clear of that area.
What I found, trying to get away from it all:
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