The Big Yard: Birdwatching in a Time of Quarantine

Or: The Evolution of a Pajama Lister

Red-tailed Hawks are probably the most commonly seen hawk in the US, often conspicuously perched on roadside power poles.

Day 500 of the Pandemic (July 31, 2021) 

            Five hundred days should feel like a milestone, like we’re making progress with this virus.  Instead, as Covid cases rise once again because of the unvaccinated and new masking and distancing and quarantine guidelines loom, it feels more like a slog.  Cochise County has 42 breakthrough cases.  To date, 758 hospitalizations and 298 deaths.  The Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS) reports that the county is at a “substantial community transmission level.”

            All this technology that informs and connects us and we haven’t learned a thing about caring for each other.  I had dreamed otherwise...though nightmares are also dreams.

            Today, however, I’m learning a new way to use technology to connect with birds.  A friend sent me an article in the New York Times about Merlin Bird ID, a smartphone app that helps people identify birds by uploading their own bird photos or by using its song-recognition software, which can pick out the calls of more than 400 species in North America.

            Wired Magazine says when the app went live, it was installed on 200,000 new devices in one month, and it has more than 611,000 active users.  (The Pandemic has made eBird popular as well.  To date, there are over a billion entries.)

I used the “Photo ID” for the first time last week on my way to the East Fork to identify a pair of stilt sandpipers at Whitewater Draw, shorebirds I originally checked off as dowitchers.

Stilt Sandpipers are uncommon migrants to southeast Arizona, preferring shallow lakes like Whitewater Draw.

           

This morning, I turn on the “Sound ID.” 

Merlin listens as I listen, somehow ignoring the trucks on the highway and the barking dog, mapping the sound of my footsteps as rhythmic peaks on a scrolling spectrogram.  Then the birds (with photos) begin dropping into a list: Cassin’s kingbird, brown-crested flycatcher, ladder-backed woodpecker, Bewick’s wren, phainopepla, house finch...  I only hear the finches.

The app tells me to listen harder.

            When red-tailed hawk pops onto the list, I scan the cloudless sky.  That can’t be right, I think.  Moments later, the raptor sails over my head, rusty tail flared and glowing in the sunlight.  I hear nothing.

            What if Merlin picks up a new bird for the yard?  Or a life bird?  Should I count the birds the app identifies for me if I also see them?  What if I don’t see them but only hear them?  As I’ve previously mentioned, I’m no purist.

According to Merlin, the neighbor’s dog is a Mexican spotted owl... 

I start to think I no longer need binoculars.

Merlin Sound ID often alerts me to the presence of a Cassin’s Kingbird long before I notice its nasal Chi-virrr call notes.

The Brown-crested Flycatcher looks very similar to the Ash-throated Flycatcher, both of which visit the yard in summer. Merlin Sound ID has no trouble distinguishing between the low rolling prEErrr-prrdrrs of the two.

The Bewick’s Wren is often heard more than seen. The Merlin app has shown the species to be more common in my yard.

Merlin is quick to recognize the soft, rising whistled huit, huit of a Phainopepla, even at a distance beyond my hearing.

Thanks for subscribing! Now go birding and try out the Merlin app!