The Big Yard: Birdwatching in a Time of Quarantine

Or: The Evolution of a Lister

The backyard Covid Fountain shortly after completion

Day 65 of the Quarantine (May 17, 2020)

            Out in our yard, the wife cuts my hair into a short, Covid style, leaving what looks like curly, gray florets of broccoli in the Covid garden...and on my head.  Afterward, I get a life bird in the evening after driving 13 miles to the San Pedro River and hiking some trails.  Botteri’s sparrow, #414.  I’m sure there’s a connection.

            It’s been a good year so far for rare birds.  In Arivaca, south of Tucson, a clay-colored thrush made an appearance at a cienega, one of only two such records for Arizona.  Flocks of birdwatchers gathered.  And now, at nearby Canoa Ranch in a once-in-a-decade showing, an arctic tern pauses on its pole-to-pole migration to spread its long, pointed wings over a desert pond and dive for fish.  An arctic tern!  Vehicle traffic along I-19 took a two-fold jump in volume.  But I’m not participating.  Not my county.

A uncommon visitor to southeast Arizona’s mesquite grasslands, Botteri’s Sparrow is named for Italian naturalist Matteo Botteri who collected it in Mexico in 1857

            Arlene Ripley tells me she has Botteri’s sparrow as a yard bird.  I’ve never met Arlene but we’re friends on Facebook where we trade sightings and photographs of birds in our yards, hers being on the western slope of the Dragoon Mountains about 40 miles north of me.  It’s become a bit of a competition.  When I put up a photo of a peregrine falcon she responded with “already got that one.”  When I got a Wilson’s warbler, she posted a dark-blue-helmeted McGillivray’s at her water feature.  I photographed a female rose-breasted grosbeak; she photographed a stunning male.  Then there was her brilliant blue grosbeak (at her water feature) to my drab female.  Her gray catbird struck me with envy—as did her water feature where the bird sipped at the smooth, dark flow.  I’ve never seen a gray catbird anywhere, much less in my yard. 

Female Blue Grosbeak

            So, I decided to construct my own water feature. I began by eyeballing an old rock wall in my yard, one that stands against the back fence and has stones mortared in a way that once—in the early 1970s—allowed a trickle of water to flow over them into a pond.  The pond was now a circular bed of wild, ungroomed periwinkle vines (Vinca minor) under an ancient and spreading apple tree, but you could still see the pond’s margin of stones.

            I started digging.  Then quickly decided the new pond should be half its original size. 

            Mixing up a small batch of Quikrete Hydraulic Water-Stop Cement and moving fast because it sets in minutes, I mortared stones into a new border and sledge-hammered out the old.  Some clear plastic tubing and a submersible pump connected the future pond to the future waterfall.  Well water (while it lasts), some plants (potted sedges and water lilies), and five goldfish (the wife’s idea) completed the project. Along with arranging a potted petunia and installing an old statue fountain adjacent to the pond.  After switching on the power and adjusting the seep, I sat back and waited for my first-ever gray catbird.

            Eventually, it would come.

Bridled Titmouse, one of the first birds at the fountain

Followed by a Black-throated Gray Warbler

Five months after finishing the Covid Fountain, a Gray Catbird, life bird #435

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