Mother's Day is for the Birds. 5-10-2026

Finally, a day that wasn't supposed to suck. We made it through Saturday's porchfest... playing for 2 hours in the cold and rain. Sunday was Mother's Day and it was supposed to be a little bit sunny and scraping 60°. We went to the same spot as last week because one year, we had two Mother's Day Milk Snakes there. Spoiler alert... we did not do that this year.

In fact, we walked for quite a while before I even took my lens cap off. Eventually, I could see a snake in the path about 20 feet up. We quickly (but softly) went up and saw a Water Snake in the path.

Unsure if it was alive or run over by some shitslice on a bike, I went right up to it to look and, startled, it squiggled like a Two-lined Salamander, unable to get purchase on the gravel, then like a shot, it slithered into the  brush. Yup. Very much alive!

We got up to the river, watching birds and keeping an eye out for more snakes. At the river, I went up onto the train tracks and saw some Painted Turtles on the other side.

We rested, watching the birds on the edge of the river. I photographed this guy which turns out to be a Least Sandpiper, a species I'd never photographed before, thus making it #45 on the year and Lifer #206. Not bad!

#46, a Lesser Yellowlegs.

A Savannah Sparrow (#47) was taking a bath in front of us.

Andrea heard a Killdeer and her Merlin seconded it but I couldn't see anything. Finally, I saw some movement on the other side of the water. I couldn't get a good shot but I got a shot of #48, the unmistakable Killdeer.

Heading back out, the answer to "what was that bird" for the last two weeks was discovered... a Northern Flicker, who looks totally different in flight, landed in a tree and gave us #49. A 5 bird day!

We went over to Andrea's Mom's house and spent Mother's Day with her and on the way home, it was still around 60°, so we pulled over at a bus stop on a busy street in Roslindale and flipped a piece of broken cement and saw two snoozing Garters. Such an odd place, but it often pays off.

Of course we had to move them to put the cement back. The little one just sleepily sat there, then went back under while the larger one sprayed me with a massive blast of musk. You know, no problem. First musking of the year and as bad as it smelled, it was OK by me. Plus, I had it coming.

Not a bad day after all.