The Big Yard: Birdwatching in a Time of Quarantine

Or: The Evolution of a Lister

Yard bird #105, the Red-faced Warbler, as unexpected as it is beautiful.

Day 154 of the Quarantine (August 14, 2020)

            At my “morning constitutional” in front of the backyard water feature, my Covid Fountain, I watch and photograph a pair of Wilson’s warblers playing in the water.  The two thrash about and dip their heads, allowing droplets of water to slide down their napes.  A cold shiver slides up mine. At the speed of a billion synapses.  Then, an orange-crowned warbler comes for a drink, followed by a pacific-slope flycatcher who waits his turn in the chokecherry.  This morning’s study: politeness.

After the birds depart and the fountain slips into the next lull, I click through the images, checking for focus and deleting most of them.  Then I reach for my phone, but remember I purposely left it in my office—no distractions this morning, I told myself.  When I look up, a red-faced warbler is staring at me from the side of the pond.  I’ve never seen one in the yard. I curse under my breath and nearly drop the camera, fumbling with the back-button focus.  The bird watches me as it skips along the garden hose to the water and dips in its beak.  I take dozens of pictures while hyperventilating. Yard bird #105 for the quarantine! 

A pair of Wilson’s Warblers at bath time.

Yard bird #104, an Orange-crowned Warbler, descends along a sedge to the pond.

Yard bird #103, a Pacific-slope Flycatcher, forages for flying insects along woodland streams on its way to summer breeding grounds in the Pacific Northwest.

I would have missed the new warbler had my phone rested on the table with my binoculars, Peterson’s guide, and my granddaughter’s forgotten pink shoes (for throwing at prowling kitties).  I sympathize with the wife, who says at retirement she’s smashing her phone and her computer.  She’s serious.  It’s not that we have much technology to begin with—satellite broadband but not broad enough to stream.  No cable TV.  We fire up our flatscreen to watch DVDs and her VCRs.  She also has music cassettes and I joke she can store them with my 8-tracks and vinyl LPs in my closet (I also have Super 8 movies).  But our house is normally quiet.  The library, 1500 books in shelves along the walls, never blares from the guestroom, nor the 400 books in our bedroom—not even a peep of background noise through the doors.  If you don’t count the nearly imperceptible but incessant siren song of Read Me!

In a world where privacy extends only as far as your skin and solitude is an uncast shadow, I can appreciate having the knowledge of the human race at my fingertips (or thumbs). But I also need the outside world to wait until I’m ready for it.  If ever.

The best kind of technology comes with the scent of lignin and cellulose in the bindings of books.

Later, I post pictures of the warbler on eBird and my Bisbee neighbor, hummingbird expert, Sheri Williamson, says it is the first record for the Mule Mountains.  When I click on the eBird page for red-faced warbler, two of my photographs are listed under “Top Photos.”

If I’d been staring at my phone, I would have missed the present moment.

Yard bird #102, the Calliope Hummingbird (male), one of 12 kinds of hummingbirds that visit the yard from spring to fall.

Thanks for joining the community! More to come!