Where Are They?

Last night, in quiet desperation, I bought a fifth (750 ml) of cheap vanilla vodka.
After a sufficient chill in the freezer, I poured a shot into a frozen glass and sipped.
An initial, vague vanilla flavor was quickly and vastly overwhelmed by a lingering finish tasting of dry cleaning solution and spent anti-freeze.
After another 24 hours of conditioning, I tried again. The vanilla was a hint, and that aftertaste was so brutally pronounced I poured the entire bottle down the drain while it still bludgeoned my tastebuds.
This is the first time in 61 years that any bottle was dumped entirely.
Coming back east this evening, nearing the carp pool at Honey Creek, a blue flash crossed into the riparian trees. I thought Eastern Bluebird, but it may have been an Indigo Bunting, as there was one on the wire past the bridge.
The first Indigo Bunting I saw was dead on a canopied country road. I could not believe the iridescent blue, that any living thing (past tense) could be that beautiful. When I looked the little bird up, the description noted the stunning little bunting had a standing date with windshields.
Apparently Indigo Buntings reinvented themselves, as I see them regularly on wires, and only one pancake, in months.
I haven't seen any blue jays. A consistent always-see in my world, from my yard to my town to the trails I walk, I haven't seen one in weeks, months. According to E-Bird (ebird.org) there doesn't seem to be a dearth of reported sightings, yet I have seen/reported exactly none.
The carp were swarming, in what must be a crowd for such a small pool. At least, for once, there was noticeable flow into the pool.
There was a male cardinal just across the bridge. Don't give up on "just another cardinal". Each has distinctive coloration, shadings and highlights, that reveal that every one of the "most distinctive red bird(s) in America" is an individual. Take a look.
300 yards past the bridge there was a red tail in a nice little meadow neatly bisected by Honey Creek. He was on a dead tree, and I got stopped just ahead of him. He tolerated thirty seconds, shook his feathers, and, with a loud kree flew to a leaved tree 80 yards on. I caught up. Within a minute, he called twice, loud, shrill, and flew back west. I couldn't find him.
Surely his plan.