The Big Yard: Birdwatching in a Time of Quarantine

Or: The Evolution of a Pajama Lister

A rare bird for Arizona, a first-ever female Purple Finch comes to the Covid fountain for a drink.

Day 254 of the Quarantine (November 23, 2020)

            The wife has tested negative, which is a relief since she works in regional government and is three people removed from our President and his Circle of Covidity (and the reason we will continue to get tested every two weeks).  I tested negative as well: four people removed.

            While I’m removed to the safety of my back porch, I think about the game “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon,” and how it’s possible that any two people on Earth are six or fewer acquaintances apart. Viruses, like Kevin Bacon, depend on human connection—where would Covid be without social interaction?  Where would Kevin Bacon be? 

When I look up, this morning’s Covid fountain has brought me a new bird, a brown-streaked finch that strikes me as different from the usual house finches.  Triangular bill, bold face pattern, notched tail.  Cassin’s finch?  I pick up my camera and take a few pictures, then check the tiny image on the screen with the drawings in my Sibley guide to birds.  Definitely not a house finch, the bird that taught me how to recognize the Cassin’s finch, which, now, I compare to the new finch.  I upload a couple cropped pictures to the birder hive mind on social media and my suspicions are immediately confirmed in less than six degrees of separation.

“Fantastic yard bird!” posts my friend Janine McCabe. “Purple finch!”  It’s a new bird for the Mule Mountains.  Species #135 for the yard this year and life bird connection #449 for me.

A female House Finch. Note the rounded head, curved upper bill, and blurry, gray-brown streaks.

A female Cassin’s Finch with bold crest and face pattern with eye ring, pointed bill, and crisp, dark-brown streaks.

A male Cassin’s Finch with bold crest and face pattern, eye ring and sharply pointed bill.

A female Purple Finch. Note the slight crest and similar face pattern to the Cassin’s but with absence of an eye ring and blurry streaking. The bill shape falls between that of the pointed Cassin’s and curved House Finch.

And that ends the lesson on distinguishing our three similar-looking finches…

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