Week #23 of My Liquid Diet: Ending the Year with a Gang ...

... of Cedar Waxwings.

Featherweight:

• Beginning weight (July 14): 230 lbs.

• Weight at Start of Week #2: 222

• Weight at Start of Week #3: 218.4

• Weight at Start of Week #4: 215.3

• Weight at Start of Week #5: 215.1

• Weight at Start of Week #6: 211.2

• Weight at Start of Week #7: 208.1

• Weight at Start of Week #8: 204.3

• Weight at Start of Week #9: 201.9

• Weight at Start of Week #10: 199

• Weight at Start of Week #11: 196.8

• Weight at Start of Week #12: 194.4

• Weight at Start of Week #13: 193.5

• Weight at Start of Week #14: 190.2

• Weight at Start of Week #15: 185.6

• Weight at Start of Week #16: 183.8

• Weight at Start of Week #17: 182.3

• Weight at Start of Week #18: 179.4

• Weight at Start of Week #19: 177.6

• Weight at Start of Week #20: 177.2

• Weight at Start of Week #21: 173.5

• Weight at Start of Week #22: 174.6

• Weight at Start of Week #23: 173.7

• Weight at Start of Week #24 (current week): 172.8

Total weight loss so far: 57.2 lbs.

Four weeks to go.

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A Cedar Waxwing — one of a slew at the Slough. (Photos by Sara.)

It was the fifth-shortest day of the year, and Sara and I were on a mission: to check in on a huge flock of Cedar Waxwings before it got too dark for birding. She’d encountered them a day earlier, on a solo expedition to Meeker Slough, near the Richmond (Calif.) Marina — and she really wanted me to see them too. As I wrote in an earlier post, members of this spectacular species secrete red wax (from digested bright-red berries) from the tips of their secondary feathers and look as though they spend hours each morning applying dramatic eye makeup. They’re the bee’s knees, and we love ’em!

As we hopped on our bikes in the early afternoon, it already felt like it was getting dark — eerie! Fittingly, given the moody lighting, one of the first birds we saw was a Snowy Egret that looked, Sara noted, as if he were starring in his own film noir: The Man With the Golden Galoshes.

Snowy Egret, hardboiled private eye. Sara says, “The Maltese Falcon ain’t got nothin’ on him.”

We continued to cycle towards Meeker Slough. I was struck by how pedaling has become way easier for me after losing so much weight on this stringent diet — which is still quite challenging, even though I’m getting to eat incrementally more and more actual food as I approach the end of it. (Look at me, gobbling my daily allowed three-quarters of a cup of blueberries as I type this!) It’s been hugely important for my morale to celebrate such improvements in my ability to lead an active life — and Sara is always quick to point them out to me, especially when I’m feeling down on myself.

She’s also quick to point out birds — frequently having spotted (or heard) them way before I have. Honestly, I don’t know how she saw this American Kestrel perched on a branch near the Albany Mudflats as we zipped along.

An American Kestrel on his favorite branch, overlooking the Bay.

Actually, I do know: She’d been looking for him there for months. American Kestrels are easy to miss, as they are the tiniest of our falcons — about 9 to 12 inches long. They’re Sara’s favorite raptors, and before he’d gone absent for a while, this particular individual — she fondly refers to him as “The Baby-Faced Assassin” — had become one of our beloved avian acquaintances along the Berkeley/Richmond shore. (Might he one day co-star with that Snowy Egret in their own version of On the Waterfront?) As I goggled at him through my binoculars, he seemed to ogle me right back with one penetrating eye!

Boy, did I feel self-conscious! Honestly, I felt judged. I wondered whether, just as I tend to anthropomorphize animals such as this one, he was fitting me into his own frame of reference — birdropomorphizing me: Look at that goofy flightless bird! Hmm, I wonder if he’s been in a hunting slump lately: looks like he lost a lot of weight since the last time I saw him.

The day was dimming.

“It’s getting late!” Sara said.

It was 2:30 p.m.

As we hurried on towards the Waxwing Gang’s hangout, we did feel compelled to stop a few times along the way, when we came across some other feathered friends.

There was this Anna’s Hummingbird that can often be found at Point Isabel, right by the dog park:

He was swiveling his head back and forth, over and over, as if deeply engrossed in a match at Wimbledon.

There was this beautiful White-crowned Sparrow, all fluffed up to keep warm:

Hey, Josh, it seemed to be wondering, didn’t you used to be shaped just like me?

There was our old pal George, the Great Blue Heron, with his mighty cascading cape:

George might be contemplating an acting career himself, as he was definitely ready for his close-up:

Moviegoers won’t be able to resist his snazzy rattail hairstyle.

Finally, as the sun squeezed out what seemed to be nearly its last, mid-afternoon rays, Sara spotted a Cedar Waxwing flitting overhead — as if he had been deputized to guide us to the clump of trees and bushes where the other 200-or-so were congregating — all of them flippin’ incredible-looking!

Watching them go to town on all those juicy berries reminded me that it was time to wolf down one of my six daily mini-meals. But just as I was about to repair to a nearby bench, the whole flock — apparently startled by something we couldn’t detect — rapidly flew up from their perches and swirled round and round above us in kind of a pointillistic blur. It was breathtaking!

A bit later, as I was noshing, Sara — who had stayed back to continue taking pictures of the Cedar Waxwings — was hit by a few wayward berries when the birds went into a feeding frenzy. Happily, I can report that no photographers were injured during this shoot!

By now it was around 3 p.m. — or, as we like to call it these days, midnight. Sara and I got back on our bikes and headed towards home, so glad to have snuck in some birding during these meager daylight hours. From now on, I told myself, the days would be getting longer. In these dark times, I’ll take signs of hope wherever I find them.

Dear Reader, I hope you have a lovely New Year! Thank you so much for following my musings in this space — your kind attention means the world to me.

Sara adds, “Wherever you are and whatever you're struggling with, I hope some beautiful birds swoop in and make you happier. For me, birds are da balm.”

While I was just writing this post, Sara came back from a solo biking-and-birding adventure. Here is a gorgeous Northern Mockingbird she met on her travels.