The Big Yard: Birdwatching in a Time of Quarantine
Or: The Evolution of a Pajama Lister
Day 571 of the Pandemic (October 10, 2021)
I’ve just finished writing June’s post about my Quantum Bird Theory, how birds move through dimensions outside of time and space, how science points to migrating birds having a mysterious “quantum sense” that allows them to navigate using the Earth’s magnetic field (see June 16, 2021).
But I am suggesting another quantum connection. A bird-to-human connection.
My next post for June 25 concerns the appearance of a yellow-billed cuckoo, which I had only seen once before in the yard. Yesterday, while thinking about what to add to this post, I decided to make a list of all these “one-time wonders” in my yard that eBird now conveniently keeps record of for me. Because I was paying attention, last year had several—the common yellowthroat and clay-colored sparrow and gray catbird.
But what about those birds from many years ago? Like the white-throated sparrow from 2012 that never returned. I have awful pictures! That same year, the yard’s first band-tailed pigeon perched in the juniper just beyond the chicken coop, the only visitation of the wild, acorn-eating cousin of the city pigeon. Band-tails were on yesterday’s one-time-wonder list.
Until this morning.
I thought it was raining. Sitting in my PJs under the porch while watching the Covid fountain, I heard the tick-ticking of elderberry fruit hitting the metal roof. Something was stirring the upper branches of the tree. Jays? White-winged doves? I grabbed my camera and stepped into the yard. Clusters of yellow flowers swayed under the weight of a dozen large gray birds with yellow bills and pale tails. Band-tailed pigeons!
The quantum vortex is real. Speak the name and they will materialize.
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Maybe I'll trigger my own quantum vortex by writing this comment but you prompted me to look at my own records. In the 13 years that we've lived in our current property I've kept my garden list (birds have to be in or seen or heard from the garden is the general rule). There are 10 species that have only been logged once. Of those 4 are raptors and are probably fly-bys or where riding thermals nearby, another 3 are shore birds and almost certainly fly-bys (we're not that far from the shore), 1 green woodpecker - unusual but not rare, and 2 - chaffinch and coal tit, are very common birds here and I see them all the time elsewhere. So maybe my quantum vortex might suck in some of those common birds that never seem to show up?