List of Birds in My Area (Updated)

These are all birds I’ve seen or heard in within a one-mile radius of home. The only one I’ve heard but not seen is the Great Horned Owl. He sometimes sits in a tree outside my bedroom window at night and I can hear him hooting. The most recent additions to my patio area are the Lesser Goldfinch, Bushtit, and Townsend’s Warbler. I don’t have good photos of all of these mainly because sightings are so rare (like the Warblers and Woodpeckers), but also because they’re so flighty (Warblers), or they’re so ubiquitous (Crows and Robins) I don’t see the point. I also don’t have the proper equipment to get good photos of birds. I have a DSLR and 70-300mm lens, but it’s not f/2.8 all the way through. A proper wildlife lens would cost about as much as a good used car, and since I’ve switched from semi-pro to occasional hobbyist, there’s no way I’m spending that much, especially during a pandemic. My focus right now is socking money away into savings.

Those Goldfinches are going to eat me out of house and home, holy crap. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from staying home all year, it’s that fall is the best time to have a bird feeder out. But just a feeder doesn’t cut it because there are species that are strictly ground feeders. Also suet in a cage hanging somewhere, because the Nuthatches, Warblers, Woodpeckers, and Bushtits love the suet. And a hummingbird feeder. The Anna’s Hummingbird is a year-round resident. And peanuts in the shell somewhere where the Jays can get them. Cover those four areas, and ALL the birds will come. My area is suburban, in a condo complex, and a tiny, fenced-in area, but if the food is here, they will come. And boy do they! The Goldfinches have taken over the feeder in such a way that I think I’ll either need to get another one or just throw stuff on the ground for the Chickadees and Nuthatches. But then I have squirrels to contend with.

I’ll post photos later.

  • American Crow
  • American Robin
  • Dark-eyed Junco (Oregon)
  • Anna’s Hummingbird
  • Song Sparrow
  • Black-capped Chickadee
  • Chestnut-backed Chickadee
  • European Starling
  • Eurasian Dove
  • Stellar’s Jay
  • California Scrub Jay
  • Hairy Woodpecker
  • Red-breasted Sapsucker
  • Great Blue Heron
  • Mallard Duck
  • Red-winged Blackbird
  • Spotted Towhee
  • Great Horned Owl
  • Red-breasted Nuthatch
  • Northern Flicker
  • Bushtit
  • Lesser Goldfinch
  • Townsend’s Warbler

My First Presidential Election Without Social Media

It was amazing! I did not miss it AT ALL! No regurgitated links, memes, outrage, sensationalism, falsehoods, etc. No bickering, no name-calling, or news feed filled with angst, dread, and pessimism… total bliss. I am well aware of what’s going on here and abroad, so there’s enough going on in my own head and heart without having it amplified by social media. Rather than spending my time in an echo chamber doomscrolling, I’ve been teaching my son about what’s been going on and why voting is so important. Also how to cook.

In addition to no social media, I don’t regularly listen to broadcast radio or watch network TV. I don’t watch cable TV, either, with the exception of the Winter Olympics and election night for presidential elections (my HOA fees pay for it, that’s the only reason I have it). I only watch Stephen Colbert and SNL on YouTube, and I haven’t used Google as my search engine for two years. I use ad blockers and pay for apps to remove ads. Literally the only ads I see are those I see at the top of my Yahoo mail inbox or in my Mahjong Tiles app, which I only play once in a blue moon (and they’re ads for games).  The only election ads I’ve ever seen are the ones I get in snail mail. The only time I hear commercials is when I have the radio on when I drive the Nissan for 20 minutes once a week. The only commercials I see are when I watch TV once every four years (or two years because Winter Olympics). I do see some ads on YouTube, but skip them as soon as I can. For the most part, my life is about 99% ad/commercial-free and 95% social media-free. (I am on a few fitness apps as well as Goodreads and Reddit, but only lurk. I’m also on Fark and occasionally comment, but no longer very active.) Fark is a website where people submit news links, so it’s still news. Just gotta not read the comments, although they are overwhelmingly left-leaning.

I do stay informed, however. I read the New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN… I think I listed several on my last post. I also read books, like the last one I read that didn’t have to do with running was How Fascism Works by Jason Stanley. Such a good book. I did watch the news on election night. I started by bouncing back and forth between NBC and CNN, and eventually settled on CNN. I’ve been watching CNN nearly every day for almost two weeks now because I really like Jake Tapper, Anderson Cooper, Chris Cuomo, and Don Lemon and although the election is over, there’s still a lot going on. I think this week I’ll wean myself off that and start listening to the CNN podcasts on Spotify. For news, I read. For music, I use Spotify and Pandora. For television, I use Netflix and occasionally Hulu or Amazon Prime. The only drawback to living an ad-free life is all the monthly subscriptions. They add up. But unlike a lot of people, I only eat out a few times a year and make all of my coffee at home. Sometimes I drop Hulu for a while. I do subscribe to the New York Times, and just block JavaScript on the WaPo articles to get around the obnoxious paywall. Jeff Bezos owns it anyway, and fuck that guy.

Speaking of greedy billionaires, I’ve been watching the hummingbirds out on my patio and have named a couple after them. The species of hummingbird we get here (Anna’s) are year-round residents. They don’t migrate. Upon learning this, I have decided to leave my feeder out and keep fresh nectar in it and even add a little extra sugar while it’s cold out. My neighbors must have neglected theirs (they’re still out but no one is feeding from them) because I now have four birds who spend all day fighting over my feeder. I think it’s three males and one female. There was one little guy who started perching on the Japanese Maple and guarding the feeder, chasing away anyone who dared come near. I named him Jeffrey (Bezos). Greedy little fucker. Then Jeffrey was ousted by an older male (I can tell he’s older because more of his pink head feathers have come in). This little guy now stands guard on the tiny tree and chases away intruders searching for a snack. I call him William (Gates). William comes out as early as dawn, before the sun has come up. But at dusk, right after the sun sets, all four commit to a peace treaty and feed together. A couple of nights ago I watched all four of them feed at once. It was adorable. I’d love to get a photo of that, but it’s just too dark.

Here are a couple of photos I took of William this week:

November 2020

Wow, it’s already November. I feel like 2020 has been The Year Covid Stole. Or at the very least, The Summer Covid Stole. Although the trouble didn’t really begin here in the U.S. until March, I had the flu in late February, so for me it’s been shitty pretty much all year. I think I’ve weathered the pandemic OK, but the fires have been a bit much. Also, the one thing I could have/was going to do this summer was derailed by a big earthquake.

My plan was to take a week off and do about five days of solo dispersed camping in Bear Valley, Idaho. However, right where I was going to go, there was a 6.5m earthquake. This was, if I remember correctly, in mid-late March. I assumed there would likely be aftershocks, so I canceled my plans. There have been mild aftershocks of anywhere from 2.0-4.2, and there was a 4.2 aftershock that took down  a mountainside that was popular with climbers. So I am glad I didn’t go because I was planning  on hiking in the Sawtooth range, and I know that area well enough to know that even a small aftershock can leave someone stranded or dead.

I’m sitting here on the couch watching the jays swoop down into my patio area to get the peanuts I left them on the table. There is such a stark difference in behavior between the California Scrub Jay and the Stellar’s Jay. The Scrub Jay is louder and more aggressive and greedier (he tries and fails repeatedly to take off with too many nuts), but also more apprehensive. If he sees me, even just sitting on the couch, he won’t come to the table. The Stellar’s Jay (my buddy Max), on the other hand, seems smarter and less afraid of me. He looks right at me, but he goes to the table for the nuts anyway. He picks one up, drops it down his craw, and picks another one up and flies away. He’s so beautiful and adorable. There is actually more than one; sometimes I see up to three of them. But there is one who reliably comes every morning looking for nuts, sometimes as if on cue when I come downstairs for my 8:00am break on a weekday. One day when I was out there hanging a suet feeder he came and perched on the fence. I said, “Hi Max!  Hey buddy, don’t be afraid of me. I’m the one who feeds you. You’re such a pretty boy. Who’s a pretty boy, Max?” He then decided I was safe and swooped down to get his snack.

The hummingbirds have also been reliable visitors. Ever since I learned that the Anna’s Hummingbird is a year-round resident here, I’ve been keeping the feeder out and filled with fresh nectar. I even use filtered water and since it began getting colder, I’ve been putting a little extra sugar in it. If it starts freezing and they’re still coming around, I may even get a heater for it. There are a total of three who are extremely territorial and sometimes fight over it so much, none of them get to it.

It’s been so beautiful around here. With all this time I have outside of work with no social life aside from texting, I’ve been keeping the house and garage and patio very clean and orderly. With everything so clean and all the warm, lovely dim lighting I’ve been using, it almost feels fancy here. To me, anyway. I grew up so poor, we had chimney fires and the roof leaked in several places every time it rained. It was so bad we had empty butter and sour cream containers and small buckets all over the place on the floor to catch the dripping water. There was soot all over the ceiling from the house fires we had. Then when we finally lived in a house that wasn’t a slum, the pipes and drains froze solid in the winter so we either didn’t have running water or couldn’t drain the bathtub or both. And we couldn’t afford much electricity, so my mom would shut off most of the house and we’d pretty much live in the living room with a fire in the wood stove or a space heater going. Most of our food came from the food pantry at our church or was donated to us. I lived on toast and saltine crackers which I spread margarine and jam on.

Now I have a few pieces of solid wood furniture, can afford to turn on the heat, and can afford to buy enough food. I have only 1,008 square feet and we live very modestly. I gross $53,560/year and a lot is deducted from it (taxes, 401(k) contribution, medical/dental/vision insurance, extra life insurance, etc.) so I only take home $1,435 every two weeks. But it’s more than a lot of people are making right now, and I can work from home and love what I do and the people I work with. I am extremely lucky. Yes, I did work hard to get where I am, but I am also lucky. My credit is good and I try not to live beyond my means. Each credit card I use gets paid off every month unless I have an expensive emergency like auto repair, a big medical expense, or a household catastrophe (like plumbing or electrical). My car is paid off and I don’t have a car payment in my budget, nor could I fit one in it. So I honestly don’t know how I’ll afford a car payment when I need a new car.

Anyway… the lovely weather and change of seasons has made this place even more beautiful with a smattering of fallen oak leaves on the patio and the sun coming through the kitchen window box. The sun at a lower angle also comes through the blinds in my bedroom in the afternoon and hits my closet doors, which are giant 8-foot mirrors. I wish we could just go back and forth between spring and fall all year.

Well, I need to go. My son’s girlfriend just came downstairs to tell me that my son has a fever and an appointment tomorrow afternoon to get a Covid test…