The Big Yard: Birdwatching in a Time of Quarantine

Or: The Evolution of a Pajama Lister

#129 Lucy’s Warbler, a denizen of streamside cottonwoods, willows, and mesquite trees. The “Mesquite Warbler.”

Day 214 of the Quarantine (October 15, 2020)

            Two hundred consecutive days of listing on eBird.  No gaps, even when traveling I managed to post a few rock pigeons.  Many days have multiple lists, days that start with my yard (123 checklists) and lead to other places like Cochise County (264 checklists) or Arizona and the West (319 checklists). 

            My buddy Chuck LaRue said friends don’t let friends become listers.  Now I need an intervention—although I am moving away from being a greenhouse-gas lister to staying in my own backyard...mostly.  No more long drives just for rarities.  Maybe.

            This year so far, my travels have gained me a total of 275 different birds.  But in my yard, yesterday’s first-ever Lucy’s warbler put me at 129 species—in my pajamas!  That’s fourth place for eBird listers in the county.  Not bad for someone who started this project in January.  Now I’m aiming to become one of the top ten yards in the country.  At least for a day.

Each morning I start my day in front of the Covid fountain not knowing what to expect.  What new bird will make the day’s “Rare Bird Alert.”  Chuck said my yard was “hot” when the gray catbird uncloaked itself.  Then the Lucy’s warbler materialized out of the green and made the RBA.  Then a pair of Cassin’s finches stood out of the hackberry, the birds—like the vireo and kingbird on my list—named for that arsenic-fingered, 19th-century ornithologist, John Cassin.

#52 Cassin’s Kingbird, a spring and summer visitor to the yard, that should be called a “Gray-headed Kingbird.”

#124 Cassin’s Finch. The males look very similar to male Purple Finches, only not so purple. More of a “Mauve Finch.”

#91 Cassin’s Vireo. Very similar to the “lead-colored” Plumbeous Vireo only the Cassin’s shows yellow tinged with green. A “Luteous Vireo.”

Which brings me to this naming thing (again) that lately has gained national attention.   

Lots of words (digital and ink) spilled about these so-called eponymous names for birds, of which Cassin has five.  Of North America’s 2000+ birds, about 150 carry someone’s name, usually a 19th-century ornithologist or a friend/relative of a 19th-century ornithologist.  The issue is a complex one.  But basically, those who favor losing the eponyms want birdwatching to be more inclusive for people who may be troubled by bird names that honor figures associated with colonialism and racism.  Others say eponyms do nothing to describe a bird but only celebrate the white person who discovered it.

In response to the controversy, and for the first time, this past summer the American Ornithological Society (AOS) renamed the bird honoring Confederate General John Porter McCown, calling it the thick-billed longspur.

            Cassin should follow, along with Baird, Townsend, Hammond…even Audubon, who was more racist than naturalist.  My favorite oriole, the one whose warbled fluting announces the arrival of spring for me, is named for General Winfield Scott, who ruthlessly expedited the Trail of Tears.  (I now call it the agave oriole.)

I lean toward dropping all eponymous names. 

Except for Schrödinger’s catbird.

The “Agave Oriole,” which arrives in my yard in spring from Central Mexico to feed on nectar and insects where agave and yucca mix with oak woodland.

Schrödinger’s Catbird

Thanks for subscribing…more to come!