The Big Yard: Birdwatching in a Time of Quarantine

Or: The Evolution of a Pajama Lister

The San Pedro River, a few miles from my home in the Mule Mountains, is the last undammed desert river in the Southwest and home to an amazing diversity of plants and animals, including more than 375 breeding or migrating birds.

Day 287 of the Quarantine (December 26, 2020)

            On a bright winter afternoon, I hike along the San Pedro River for a bit of Covid solitude, an introvert’s penitence and luxury, hoping for the possibility of a rare pacific wren as reported over the past week on eBird.  The sky is as flat and blue as a GraniteStone skillet.  Vesper and spry little Lincoln sparrows jump among the brushy willows.  A song sparrow sings a winter aria, verse, chorus, and coda, while Gila woodpeckers yak from the giant cottonwoods.  Dark water slips under a logjam, the tangled arms and legs of trees stripped of skin and polished smooth and sexy by floodwaters loaded with sediment.

The Song Sparrow is very common and widespread near water in winter in southern Arizona. It’s song is a distinctive gentle rhythm of clear notes on either side of a long trill.

After nesting in prairie grasslands of the central US and Canada, the Vesper Sparrow winters across the southern US and Mexico.

The Lincoln Sparrow nests in willow and alder thickets as far north as Alaska but also spends its winters in the southern US and Mexico.

The Green-tailed Towhee winters in southern Arizona and Mexico.

A Black Phoebe, a common year-round resident in the western US and Mexico near ponds and streams like the San Pedro River.

            At Marker #7 I trip through dead shrubs and downed branches, accidentally crushing a brittle plastic bottle and alerting the neighborhood to my presence.  When I look up, another birdwatcher is looking at me from behind his black mask.  He lifts one hand and waves. 

It’s a stakeout.

            His name is Ly and he’s from Phoenix, making the three-hour drive for the wren.  We share today’s sightings, his white-throated sparrow and my green-tailed towhee as highlights. 

            “I think I got a Louisiana waterthrush at Marker Four,” he says.  “Saw the white eyebrow as it flew by.”

            I recall recent reports of the bird, how in winter it sometimes makes its way into this corner of the state from coastal Mexico where it probes the margins of swamps and streams for insects. “I’ve looked for them here a few times,” I say.  “No luck yet.  It would be a life bird for me.”

            “Me, too.”

            We talk about yesterday’s sighting of the Pacific wren while searching the twisted logs for cinnamon movement with a short, uplifted tail.  Lincoln’s and vesper sparrows get special attention, but try as I might, I can’t turn an emberizine into a troglodyte.

            Or can I.

            Suddenly, I notice a raised feathered tail. It bobs four times as it slides along the far side of one log.  When the bird steps into the open, I say: “There’s your waterthrush!” as it wings past us heading upstream to a muddy bank.

            We look at each other and at the bird. We wear the same awe on our faces.

A Pacific Wren, the object of my search, which I will see on my next visit to the San Pedro River.

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