The Big Yard: Birdwatching in a Time of Quarantine

Or: The Evolution of an Unapologetic Lister

Willcox Twin Lakes with a pair of Black-necked Stilts and a bonus Willet.

Day 184 of the Quarantine (September 14, 2020)

            Almost a week and still no reports about the eared quetzals at Rucker Canyon.  So, so familiar…just like last June at Herb Martyr campground.  A day late and a quetzal short.  The life of a lister.

            To numb the sting of a second dip with the bird (at least I didn’t travel from Wisconsin—or Boston!), yesterday I did my part to warm the planet by driving 75 miles to Willcox to see a rare Sabine’s gull visiting the Twin Lakes Golf Course.  The gull, along with an uncommon black tern and stilt sandpiper, also reported on the listserv, meant the possibility of three life birds, together with several more sandpipers I haven’t yet checked off for the county.  The unapologetic lister is strong with me.

            At my arrival, I stopped near another vehicle and got out to photograph the tern, which was hovering and feeding over the shrunken lake.  Hundreds of sandpipers and phalaropes, stilts and avocets (one birder “carefully counted” 550 of the latter), crowded a muddy berm halfway across the flat water.  Shorebirds kweeped and pleeked and kleeted with strident trills and rolling nasal trumpeting.  They probed and preened, paddled the air and water, or hopped about like fleas.  Then, a man wearing a mask and carrying a camera shouted to me and pointed: “The Sabine’s is here!”

            Five minutes and two life birds.

A small oceanic gull, the Sabine’s Gull, is a rare but regular migrant in Arizona, usually in the fall. The gull is named for a British scientist, Sir Edward Sabine, who discovered it in 1818 on the west coast of Greenland.

Another uncommon late summer migrant in Arizona, the Black Tern in nonbreeding plumage.

Still another uncommon fall migrant in Arizona, the Stilt Sandpiper breeds during summer in the Arctic tundra and spends its winters in northern South America.

            I got my third life bird—the hemisphere-hopping stilt sandpiper—on the far side of the lake where I parked some distance away from the masked man, who had met up with another group of unmasked birders. Masked or unmasked?  I took notice of this because the guy wearing the mask who pointed out the gull warned me as I approached him, “No mask, don’t come any closer!”  I stopped twenty feet away and returned to my car.  My mask was in the center console and I put it on though I remained in the vehicle.

            This past week has seen a rise in protests about wearing masks.  Utah, Kentucky, Maryland, Alabama—hundreds of anti-maskers are marching on capitals and cities to rally against government mask mandates.  In North and South Dakota, people stood in solidarity against the mandates and their political leaders made no requirements or banned the mandates outright.  Now, both states lead the country in new Covid cases per capita.  A study out of San Diego State University traced an estimated 266,796 infections across the country due to the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally.  Covid deaths in the U.S. are nearing 200,000.

            This shouldn’t even be an issue.  It’s not about your “freedom.”  The mask says “I care about you” in the plainest, most visible and unspoken language—and perhaps that’s the rub.  Some people—ironically—want mask bans to disguise the egotistic among us.

            At first, I was a bit miffed with the masked birder.  I had just stepped out of my car, and he was the one who engaged me before I walked toward him.  But he was right.  I was wrong.  I wasn’t wearing my mask.  It’s past time to get in the faces of the maskless.

Wilson’s Phalarope is a common and abundant visitor to Arizona’s sewer ponds and lakes.

Another sandpiper like the stilt, the Baird’s Sandpiper migrates from breeding grounds in the Arctic to South America.

The Least Sandpiper is one of the most common and abundant sandpipers in Arizona during the spring and fall.

Another long-distance migrant, the Pectoral Sandpiper may travel 19,000 miles each year between southern South America and its northern tundra breeding grounds.

The Lesser Yellowlegs is a common shorebird in Arizona in the spring and fall.

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