The Big Yard: Birdwatching in a Time of Quarantine

Or: The Evolution of a Lister

The Woodhouse’s Scrub-jay, one of the acorn-drop culprits and formerly the Western Scrub-jay

Day 109 of the Quarantine (June 30, 2020)

            Today, Arizona’s governor did an about-face and ordered a shutdown.  No restaurants. No gyms.  No bars.  No theaters.  No waterparks.  No gatherings of more than 50 people.  This is not a lockdown or even stay-at-home order, but a weak attempt to control what he already allowed to go out of control with 74,000 cases and 1600 deaths.  And still no word from my brother.

            Either way, this introvert is content to remain at home.

            The Emory oak that spreads its enormous branches above our house has begun dropping acorns—or, more likely, the jays are, and they think it’s funny. The tasty “bellotas” hit the metal roof with a loud bang and bounce along the galvanized corrugations all the way to the gutter.  The noise can wake the dead—or flush doves off the feeder.  But for me, acorn drop is the sound of summer in Bisbee.

            The sound of southern California is the leaf blower.  This time of year, my family normally visits relatives in San Juan Capistrano for First Daughter’s birthday, and I’m pining for Capistrano’s early morning, 100-decible roar of air blasting through a tube at 200 mph.  And the pungent smell of the gum trees that clears my sinuses.  And the long walks for birds along Trabuco Creek where slow water cuts through gray hills of fire-tinder chaparral.  And the grunion runs and bioluminescent red tides at Doheny and Salt Creek beaches where we walked on moonless nights trailing phosphorus footprints in the sand.

The Middle Daughter kisses a grunion at Salt Creek Beach in southern California

The trail through the chaparral along Trabuco Creek in San Juan Capistrano

The California Scrub-jay. In 2016, ornithologists divided the Western Scrub jay into two species, the California and Woodhouse’s Scrub-jays

Another California bird of dry chaparral, the California Thrasher

And still another California bird of dry chaparral, the California Gnatcatcher. (And, yes, some people think the state flower of Arizona is the California poppy)

The First Daughter is 36.  The two of us have been hiking along the drainages between Cienega Creek and I-10 so she can mount trail cameras in the culverts.  Working with a grant and the Coalition for Sonoran Desert Protection, she’s using dozens of cameras and her tracking skills to complete a black bear study after two of the animals were killed on the Interstate.  So, while I photograph yellow-rumped warblers dressed for romance and zone-tailed hawks screaming at their nest, she glues and screws metal boxes to concrete.  Wildlife biology is inherently socially isolating.

A Yellow-rumped Warbler sporting its breeding plumage

One angry Zone-tailed Hawk at Cienega Creek

Black Bear are surprising common in Arizona. This cinnamon morph walked in front of my wildlife camera in the Mule Mountains

It’s also National Asteroid Day, which the awesome astrophysicist and lead guitarist for the rock group Queen, Brian May, co-established six years ago.  In honor of the day, I will post to social media the orbit and physical details of the Youngest Daughter’s asteroid, Minor Planet 15624 Lamberton (yes, you can Google it).  A national science fair competition awarded the honor to Melissa in the eighth grade.  My shining starling. 

Since I don’t have a photo of the Youngest Daughter’s asteroid, this is one of my favorite images from my wildlife camera—a standoff between a mountain lion and a coati.

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