The Big Yard: Birdwatching in a Time of Quarantine

Or: The Evolution of a Pajama Lister

This Dark-eyed Junco should be at its breeding grounds far north of us by May instead of “Accidental” in my yard.

Day 423 of the Pandemic (May 15, 2021)

            My war with the skunks continues—I’ve trapped and released 40 now, and I swear some of them look familiar.  When I release them, driving as far as 15 miles to the San Pedro River—they have a look of resignation, as if saying, “Sure, fine.  I know this place.  See you in a few days.”  The wife says to make peace with them.  Give them their space under the house.

Halfway through May and I’ve listed 92 birds.  I’d hoped to get 100 species in the entire year.  Now I might reach that goal one month.

            Maybe.  Numbers are dropping off, fewer species and fewer counts.  Although the dark-eyed juncos linger—and make the rare bird report every day—others have bugged out.  White-crown and chipping and Lincoln sparrows no longer scratch for seeds.  The pair of ruby-crowned kinglets has abandoned their ritual of morning baths at the fountain.  A single Swainson’s thrush has traded places with half a dozen hermit thrushes.  And my favorite bird, a single, red-breasted nuthatch that has graced my seed blocks and trickling water feature all winter, vanished the day the black-headed grosbeak horde took over the feeding station.

            I feel their absence as the melancholy that comes with a change of seasons.  Like the weight of time passing.

Until a few days ago, this Red-breasted Nuthatch had been a daily companion since last September.

            But in the flex and flux that is my yard, summer birds appear each day.  Brown-crested and ash-throated flycatchers and Cassin’s kingbirds call from the oaks at first light, their whips and kwerks and kews rising in the air as sunlight sets flames to the canyon walls.  Three kinds of empids—those small agile flycatchers lumped into a group (Empidonax) and distinguished by hard-to-see details like the length of their wing tips or “primary projections” and call notes—sally forth from their perches to snap up flying insects.  All three orioles and all three tanagers feast at the orange halves and grape jelly I put out every morning for them.  But dry winds knock brown leaves from the oaks that carpet bare ground between tuffs of brittle grasses.  The heated air smells of smoke; the canyon is a tinderbox.  The well pumps fewer and fewer gallons as measured by the graduated stick I slip into the holding tank each day.

            I struggle with buckets of dwindling stored rainwater to keep the garden from wilting and the pond filled during this foresummer drought.  I’ll be ordering a tanker by the end of the week.  Enough non-potable to last us another three—still a long way to the monsoon.

A tiny dark bill, long primary projections (wing tips), and a call that sounds like a sharp peek, identifies this Empidonax flycatcher has a Hammond’s Flycatcher.

A larger bill and shorter primary projections than the Hammond’s Flycatcher and a call like a soft whit or plaintive whistle, identifies this empid as a Dusky Flycatcher.

Short primary projections and a habit of wagging its tail slowly downward, identifies this empid as a Gray Flycatcher.

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