The Big Yard: Birdwatching in a Time of Quarantine

Or: The Evolution of a Pajama Lister

The Big Yard’s first nesting Violet-crowned Hummingbird, a rare occurrence anywhere in the US.

Day 489 of the Pandemic (July 20, 2021)

            Covid numbers are on the rise again, the majority of cases (90 percent) among the unvaccinated.  It seems some are against the vaccine, against science, even, to the point of death—so they can “own the libs.”  My favorite meme of late:  A person saying, “You can’t fix stupid” to a spiky depiction of the coronavirus, who responds: “I can fix stupid.”

            I recall a Terry Pratchett/Neil Gaiman quote in their wonderful and funny apocalyptic tale Good Omens where Death is speaking—in all caps, as is his way: “DON'T THINK OF IT AS DYING,” he says to some poor soul. “JUST THINK OF IT AS LEAVING EARLY TO AVOID THE RUSH.”  

I think about my conservative family members choosing death to “own” me.  I would rather they just own me without the messy theatrics.

With appreciated theatrical flair, a beautiful female violet-crowned hummingbird gathers dryer lint (free of chemicals) clipped to the clothesline.  The yard is averaging between 25-30 birds a day, mostly kingbirds and flycatchers, tanagers and towhees.  Five hummingbird species visit the feeders, including the violet-crown.  The hummingbird always flies off in the same direction with a bill full of fluff, but try as I do, I can’t locate a nest.  I check shrubs and oaks, eye-level to 20 feet, horizonal limbs and forked branches—all locations the hummingbirds usually place their compact cups of grass and spider webs, lined with lint and camouflaged with lichens.

Primarily a Mexican species, only a few dozen records exist of violet-crowns nesting in the US, most of them in Cochise County. 

           

Less than a month since the first monsoon storm broke over the Mule Mountains and my rain gauge measures more than seven inches.  The best start of the monsoon in memory.  The well is pumping, and the tanks overflow.  I need another tank—the greenhouse well has 22 feet of water in it.  The oaks sheath themselves in green and the grass is practicing yoga (Vrikshasana or tree poses).  I spent yesterday replacing the sparkplug, air filter, and gas in the Yard Machine, and pulling apart the carburetor to clean it after the bloody thing refused to start.  It ran fine until the blade sheared, which I replaced, so that the shaft could snap in two.  Time for a new mower.

            The best part—Banning Creek is flowing, at least to my riprap check dam where the runoff pools and (hopefully, anyway) percolates into the ground near the well.  I should pop a cork on another bottle of local red from Passion Cellars and soak my drought-weary bones.

Banning Creek cuts through the center of the Big Yard flowing west to the San Pedro River.

Hepatic Tanagers—this is a female, the male is below—also nest somewhere in the Mule Mountains on rare occasions.

This pair of Hepatic Tanagers visits the yard year-round.

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