I didn't get a chance to do a ton of birding this week, because we got our first snow of the year (yes, at this point in global warming we get essentially one day of snow every year and it's in march for some reason). I went out one time in very cold rain and got a couple photos of trees but didn't see a single bird, just heard some Golden-crowned Kinglets and some Brown Creepers and a Robin or two. It was very cold.
A tree.
Towhees always look a little wacko.
I did get some photos of animals in the snow, though, and I was so excited because it gave me a chance to play with the manual settings on my camera. Which is to say I'm bad at that and they all turned out way too dark and so when I made them light enough they were grainy as shit.
Chestnut-backed Chickadee in the beginnings of the snowfall
"On the State of the Internet" Never Angeline North, 2026.
That's a Towhee faceplanted in the snow digging for seed while a Junco watches.
Towhee still camped in the feeder while a Song Sparrow checks out the Suet
One of our local Columbian Black-tailed Deer came out to check out the yard in the snow.
This Anna's Hummingbird yelled at me a bit for daring to be on the porch while she ate.
The best news I have is that my friend Threshold invited me to go on a Pelagic. For the uninitiated, a Pelagic is a trip where you get together with a bunch of birders on a boat and they drive the boat way out into the ocean so you can see the birds that never come on land. This includes Shearwaters, Albatrosses, Storm-Petrels, Skua, Jaegers, and more. These are essentially these like, monster versions of Seagulls that live nearly their whole lives at sea. There are often other types of birds like Alcids (Murres, Murrelets, Auklets, Puffins, etc) as well as Grebes, Loons, Brant, Scoters, and various Shorebirds that like to be out in the water. You'll see them just floating on the water, or else flying around and grabbing fish. Whales and other sea mammals are also common and I'm hoping to get to see at least one whale while we're out there. The Black-Footed Albatrosses that are common on these PNW trips are huge, with 6 to 8 foot wingspans (for reference, bald eagles' wingspans only get up to 7.5 feet at the largest). I'm sure I'll have a lot more to talk about this as it comes up, but overall this is very exciting.
Another birding outing I'm planning for later in the year is I want to go to visit my friend Carrie in Miami and do some South Florida birding this fall around November. I'm watching ticket prices right now, and I'd have to save up a bit, but I think it's doable. I am a bit worried about the climate towards trans people in Florida right now, with some sources I'm seeing calling Florida a "do not travel" state for trans people, but the good news is if someone does try to arrest me for doing a correct-gender piss in a park toilet, then my friend Carrie whom I'm staying with is a trans lawyer for the ACLU. I also feel like she'll probably be a pretty good resource for me, as she's lived there for a bit now and can give me practical advice.
<3 u darlings, Sara