I've been working too hard. Teaching kids can really take it out of you. And on top of it all, I'm working on the Sharpie paper and trying to get into grad school. Graduate school seems to be inordinately difficult to get accepted to. And I hear similar things from people in different fields.
Anyway, I realized this morning that I didn't want to go and work on my computer at all. If I was going to do anything today, I decided, I was going to take a bird walk. I've been having all the symptoms of bird withdrawal: obsessively wearing my binoculars indoors, looking up bird species on Wikipedia when I should be working, and staring wistfully out of windows. So, I strapped on the bins and tucked the Sibley into my pocket and headed for the good birding trail.
The Eider Ducks greeted me when I got down to the water. I was soon soothed by their presence. On my walk I ended up seeing many species I hadn't seen before here. Here's my day's bird list:
Common Eider, Common Raven, Song Sparrow, Nelson's Sharp-tailed Sparrow*, Gray Catbird*, Black-capped Chickadee, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Golden-crowned Kinglet, Herring Gull, Pine Siskin, White-crowned Sparrow, Brown Creeper, Peregrine Falcon, Black-backed Woodpecker*, Ruffed Grouse, Mallard, and Slate-colored Junco.
* Lifers
Also had interesting encounters with some of the above species. The catbirds were meowing at me imperatively. The chickadees were foraging in the leaves, for all the world like a bunch of towhees except they were gleaning their insects along the ground, not kicking up the leaves. The grouse and I both apparently scared the bejeezus out of each other. It was a fun bird day, and they all gave me back my motivation.