Good morning, DMV! It’s Wednesday, May 20.
Melissa Hehn-Hill woke earlier than usual yesterday morning to tend to her dogs. It was 6:30 a.m. She was in her kitchen when she heard something collide against her sliding glass door. She looked outside and found a bird on the deck.
“It moved slightly and laid there with its eyes open. Sadly it was not breathing and didn't move when I touched it. They look so alive with no visible injury. Thought this little guy might make it, but he did not,” Melissa, 51, of Arlington, wrote to me.
(Melissa Hehn-Hill)
“I have the bird reflectors on another window but not this door. I started googling some options then opened my email and was a little confused when I saw the heading of your newsletter.”
The headline of my newsletter yesterday: “Deadly bird collisions during peak migration.” And Melissa read it after a bird hit her own window.
“It was like an ad popping up after you mention out loud you want to maybe visit Montana and then a Montana ad comes up!” she said.
As of yesterday afternoon, the bird was still on her deck.
“I thought of every step this bird had taken to be the size it was now, from egg to fledgling and now looking so perfectly alive …,” she wrote. “I haven't had the heart to toss it, maybe I'll give it a proper burial in my garden, I guess I somehow hoped it would wake up.”
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📰 News around the DMV
The Salty Donut arrives in Georgetown (Washingtonian)
🌼 Things to do
2 p.m. Sunday: In a special event for Memorial Day weekend, the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Silver Spring will host a free, docent-led tour, highlighting the changes in American medicine over the past 160 years, with a special focus on military medicine. No RSVP required.
Noon on May 30: The Parks at Walter Reed will host the DC Bird Alliance for a free live raptor presentation on the Great Lawn. The event comes at the end of Black Birders Week — created in response to the Central Park birdwatching incident — will feature renowned African American falconer Rodney Stotts and his birds of prey.
📷 Your joy
(Sarah Moore)
“Before it started raining on Wednesday, May 13, it was gorgeous in the morning!” Sarah Moore, 37, of Woodbridge, Virginia, wrote in her submission.
“I was able to get in a quick hike at Mason Neck State Park before heading to work.”
🐦
