The Big Yard: Birdwatching in a Time of Quarantine
Or: The Evolution of a Lister
Day 58 of the Quarantine (May 10, 2020)
My sighting of a female rose-breasted grosbeak makes eBird’s Rare Bird Alert. My first rare bird alert for my yard and the only rose-breasted grosbeak reported in Cochise County. And it’s “Confirmed”—probably because of the photos I submitted.
I woke at 4 am yesterday to count birds all day for eBird’s annual Global Big Day. I listed 41 species, including three new to the yard for 2020: rose-breasted grosbeak (#84), tree swallow (#85), and a dusky-capped flycatcher (#86). The tree swallows, which streaked like tiny F-16 fighters directly over the house, are the first ever for this place. The grosbeak was just plain awesome.
Yesterday’s Big Day capped a week of new, first-of-the-year (FOY) yard birds. Along with the four kinds of hummingbirds—Anna’s, black-chinned, broad-tailed, and broad-billed—dipping nectar from the feeders, two vireos (Hutton’s and warbling) joined three warblers (yellow, black-throated gray, and Townsend’s) along with a magnificent brown-crested flycatcher and a western tanager that looks like someone lost a pet parrot. This week it’s all vireos, warblers, and flycatchers, which I checked off as I wandered around the yard with binoculars and camera.
This morning, the pale-billed grosbeak materializes out of ten black-headed grosbeaks right outside the window over my writing desk.
“The rosy-breasted pushover is back,” I inform the Head Blond, pointing to the grosbeak hanging from the seed block.
“You’re not telling anyone, are you?” she says in a way that sounds like more of a direction than a question. She worries what our neighbors will say about an influx of strangers in cargo shorts driving up and down our road.
“Just the planet,” I say, reminding her that our yard is private. “No one cares, anyway.”
She gives me a look. She’s read Mark Obmascik’s The Big Year: A Tale of Man, Nature, and Fowl Obsession and knows how cutthroat the competition can get, like when competitive birder Sandy Komito trespassed into someone’s backyard to see a hawk owl, or when he “finagled” access to an unoccupied house in winter in Anchorage to watch from a warm couch for a Siberian accentor, an insect-eating, sparrow-like rarity from Asia. The owners never knew he was there.
I have had birdwatchers come to the yard, but they normally call or email and ask first. On a good day during migration, 50 species may visit, including 3 kinds of orioles, 2 tanagers, and 12 species of hummingbirds and warblers. And you never know when an elegant trogon or yellow grosbeak might appear. Magic happens. You don’t need luck, just eyeballs and/or ears. Pay attention to the shouting world around you. Serendipity is an act of will.
While writing at my desk, I keep watch through the window for rosy-faced knock-knees with binoculars doing the birder shuffle across my yard in white socks and sandals.
No comers yet.
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Don't forget!! If a Yellow Grosbeak appears in your yard I will drop everything to see it. Also, I wonder if you could put the actual date along with how many days you've been in quarantine.