The Big Yard: Birdwatching in a Time of Quarantine

Or: The Evolution of a Lister

A surprise visit from a Summer Tanager

Day 79 of the Quarantine (May 31, 2020)

            A first-ever-for-the-yard (FEY) summer tanager hangs on the suet feeder outside my window.  I grab my camera to record the historic event: #132 on the yard’s “life list.”  If the male bird had any more red in its feathers, it would burn my camera’s optics and then my retinas.  The tanager follows the arrival of male and female Lucifer hummingbirds, which my neighbors Hayley and Todd have allowed me to chase around their feeders for a decent photo.

A male Summer Tanager with attitude

A female Lucifer Hummingbird

            The Lucifer was my first life bird seen in my PJs, a female at the bedroom window feeder in 2010, long before the Pandemic gave me permission to simplify my wardrobe to everyday flannel wear. For years, I had searched without luck for the hummingbird in places like Madera Canyon and Cave Creek in the Chiricahua Mountains.  So, having the first show up outside my window felt like grace, something undeserved. Like all the birds that come to me, gifts of grace.  This is where, to my thinking, Emily Dickinson got it wrong about the thing with feathers that perches in the soul.  It isn’t hope.  For hope—unlike grace—depends on me.  

Now, every year, after spending the winter in Central Mexico, the rare migrant visits me as the honeysuckle and coralbean begin unfurling their tubular flowers in anticipation of long, curved bills and sweetened tongues.  I’m attuned to their arrival by the pitch of their wings, like a quiet shuffling of cards stacked in my favor.

My first Lucifer Hummingbird, a female from 2010

A year later, in 2011, a male Lucifer Hummingbird arrived outside my window

A male Lucifer among the honeysuckle

I celebrate the new birds, number 90 and 91 for my quarantine yard list, by replanting my Covid garden, replacing the javelina winter vegetables for javelina summer vegetables.  The cucumbers, watermelons, zucchini, and pumpkins are already calling to them, the fresh aroma of young leaves wafting through the canyon like the smell of a candlelit jack-o-lantern at Halloween.  As a precaution, I half-bury a 15-foot strip of corrugated metal roofing along the outside perimeter and energize the electric fence.  I’m sure they will use the single-strand wire as dental floss. 

Baby javelina being introduced to my garden vegetables

A Coues White-tailed Deer waits for the opportunity of an open gate

A Cottontail Rabbit, another garden contender, doesn’t need an open gate

A Hog-nosed Skunk being evicted from the garden

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