The Big Yard: Birdwatching in a Time of Quarantine
Or: The Evolution of a Lister
Day 21 of the Quarantine (April 3, 2020)
A snow goose probes the gooey depths of the south pond at Tucson’s Reid Park, making the daily eBird rare bird alert. I spotted it yesterday, as I do every Thursday when our minimized writing workshop meets at the park to practice social distancing in beach chairs while reading our latest literary efforts to each other through our masks.
The snow goose, which breeds in the arctic and winters in northern Mexico, has left its flock of hundreds and stumbled upon the small urban pond where it accompanies a bulbous-faced domestic goose that towers over it, among the other odd ducks that call this place home. The drake honks. The snow goose grins apologetically. “Why do you hang out with someone so ridiculous?” I ask her. Gillian, one of the writers in my group, answers in her best Stephen Stills’ voice: “You gotta love the one you’re with.”
It was a day for misplaced birds. On my drive to Tucson, I stopped at the Benson sewage treatment plant where a small flock of five ring-billed gulls and a pair of Franklin’s gulls drifted at the center of the pond among the usual widgeons and coots. The Franklin’s were a life bird for me. Number 406.
Today is turkey chimichanga day. I roll the leftover breast meat with Mexican cheese and salsa into flour tortillas and fry them in olive oil until brown and crispy. Or black and crispy. The kitchen fills with choking smoke.
I wonder if the CDC would advise me to wear a mask when I’m cooking. Maybe, despite what the CDC says, I’ll follow our political leaders and refuse to wear one. Their rambling, self-congratulatory incompetence. Our politicians are less than helpful. Kurt Vonnegut would say they should quit speaking and allow the dying to stop.
After dinner, I step outside to photograph Venus and the Pleiades. Once every eight years or so, the planet and the star cluster have a tryst, and I’m feeling a bit voyeuristic. As I climb down the creekbank into the darkness, trying to line up the two celestial lovers with a tree-full of roosting turkeys, I think about mountain lions. They see me, I’m sure, although I rarely see them, except on my wildlife camera. I find their kills, what remains of the whitetail deer and javelina they ambush. I keep their skulls on my bookshelf, along with a lion skull I stumbled on upcanyon and cleaned up after making a sketch of it.
Lions also eat turkey. Photographers too, I suppose, if given the opportunity. I tell my wife that if I don’t return from one of my hikes to check my trailcam because something jumps me, I’m good with that. “Easier to bury you if you’re inside a mountain lion,” she says, meaning, I guess, either shoveling dirt over poop or no burial at all. She’s always been the pragmatic one.
I take a few pictures of the sky with turkey silhouettes and the first Mexican whip-poor-will of the year begins calling from the creekbed (#59). Then the first elf owls start chattering (#60). Which are joined by a lone whiskered screech-owl (which I already checked off months ago).
Kingbirds and flycatchers by day. Owls and goatsuckers by night. The yard is full of beginnings.
Love the owl!!
Your writing about the Big Yard (love the double entendre!), is so playful and easy, it's always a pleasure to read. It feels effortless as if you are skipping down a lane like a kid, though I know it's not that easy. Thank you for including me in your mailings. I miss our group! I've actually been writing up a storm lately myself... Hope to see you sooner rather than later, Val