The Big Yard: Birdwatching in a Time of Quarantine

Or: The Evolution of a Lister

The Mexican Long-tongued Bat, one of two nectar-feeding bats among Arizona’s 28 species of flying mammals, which eat mostly insects like mosquitoes.

Day 138 of the Quarantine (July 29, 2020)

            Reading David Quammen’s Spillover: Animal Infections and the next Human Pandemic (published in 2012) and thinking we’re done.  Most of the world has a handle on Covid-19, but this country has its head shoved in the sand.  Yesterday, a video of white-coated quacks who call themselves “America’s Frontline Doctors” went viral with claims that Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) is a “cure,” and we don’t need to wear masks or practice social distancing. I spent half the afternoon trying to convince my niece—whom I learned has reservations about vaccines—not to take it seriously, not to believe them.  I failed.  She said I only wanted her to agree with me.  She was right about that.

            Lies, it seems certain, spread faster than germs.

            Quammen doesn’t address this kind of pandemic lunacy, the distrust of science. The politicization of science.  (You can tell democrats from republicans these days by who’s wearing masks.)  Cases are only going up because testing has increased!  Sure. And if I shut off the water to my house, I’ll never have another leaky pipe.  Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, who has 50 years’ experience as an epidemiologist, has advised six presidents, and is our country’s leading expert on infectious diseases, is derided by news’ propagandists as “a hypocritical buffoon who refuses to admit what he clearly doesn't know.”

            Meanwhile the death toll in our country remains the highest in the world.  We had 1.9 million cases in July, double that of June, and people burn their masks.  We should get a Darwin Award.

In 2006, as Quammen makes clear, we knew bats were a reservoir for emerging viruses.  Why bats?  Because one quarter of all mammals on the planet are bats.  1400 species. We knew a pandemic was coming.  We did nothing.

            And so, in these days of tranquility and trembling, as Annie Dillard says, I turn to the birds.  When the world is upside-down, they set me upright.  They cue me to a simpler way of being.  The birds are not fretful. They are something better.  They are present.    

#78 for the yard, the Black-throated Gray Warbler is normally the first warbler to arrive at the fountain.

A Bullock’s Oriole, #67, one of three species of orioles for the yard.

Painted Redstarts, #44, were rare for the yard before the fountain. Now, I see them several times a week.

The Covid Fountain with Seep Monkeyflower from the Santa Cruz River.

This morning, after filling the hummingbird feeders, I sit on the back porch with my wife, watching the fountain.  A black-throated gray warbler comes for a drink at the pool.  Then, a Bullock’s oriole skips though the tree branches and over the stones to sip at the waterspout.  A bold painted redstart dives in and takes a bath.

            The hummingbird feeders are all empty, I realize, because the bats have arrived.

The “Pantaloon-wearing” Lesser Long-nosed Bat, whose tongue is equal to its body length, is Arizona’s other nectar-feeder. Both species often visit hummingbird feeders in late summer.

Wilson’s Warbler is a common visitor to the fountain in the summer months.

This Hermit Warbler will be a life bird for me when it surprises me at the fountain in a few weeks.

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