As usual I had grand plans for Walktober. A place a couple of hours away was calling my name, but also as usual life got in the way and I can’t find a day when I can spend four hours to travel plus a couple hours of exploration.

So that adventure will have to wait for another time.

Meanwhile, it’s not that I haven’t had mini adventures right around here. Katie and I have wandered in plenty of parks this month. Any one of them would be a wonderful Walktober. But she already got to do her Walktober, and I wanted one of my own.

So I’ll share an adventure I recently had with a college friend I haven’t seen in many, many years. Since she retired from her career she’s become interested in birds; she’s joined birding groups online and is learning all kinds of cool things.

She’s seen my posts about the birds out at Kensington, and has never had a bird land on her hand before. She, like so many of you, wanted to experience that for herself. So we met out there on Wednesday.

I get such a kick, every time I take someone new out there, watching their face the first time a little bird lands on their hand. Every single person grins with such a quiet but intense joy.

The little birds weigh next to nothing, they rest so lightly on the fingertips, you’re not sure they stopped there at all. It’s magic.

So, we wandered the trails in the woods, stopping every time we heard the little ones chripping overhead, offering them special treats of peanuts and suet balls and black oilers.

Some of the birds were quite decisive, others took their time to select the perfect morsel.

It was a wonderful walk in the woods, on a beautiful, perfect day. We even saw a bird new to both of us, a juvinile red headed woodpecker! We didn’t get a close look, but we saw him (or her?) flit through the trees several times.

What an extraordinary bird, so beautiful when it flies, with slashes of bright white across the back of it’s wings.

So even though I didn’t get to travel to the far-off park this time, I promise I’ll share it with you when I do. Maybe it will be in November. Maybe it will be in 2022.

It’s nice to have something to look forward to.

Thanks, Robin, for hosting this Walktober for all of us. It was wonderful to get out into the world and enjoy everything that October has to share.