The Big Yard: Notes from a Pajama Birdwatcher

February 14, 2024

On the first day in weeks when temperatures haven’t dipped below freezing, the gobblers spread wings and fan tails for the hens and strut around with blue heads and wattles and snoods as red as Valentine hearts.  Forty degrees and the toms think it’s spring.

They arrived with the snow over the weekend, a thundering herd of 42—yes, two score and two!—to tear up the yard for a few spilled sunflower seeds.  Then they wouldn’t leave.  The hens and toms trot single file into the yard each morning when they see me filling the feeders, which mostly remain untouched.  The other birds—the siskins and goldfinches, the nuthatches, juncos, and jays—will have nothing to do with the big, goofy guajolotes.

Weighing in at 20-25 pounds (males), the Gould’s turkey (Meleagris gallopavo mexicana) is the largest of the five subspecies of wild turkey.

It also has the largest feet and longest legs.

When we moved here fifteen years ago, two lonely hens occasionally ventured into the yard.  So, I contacted the Arizona Game and Fish Department about finding them mates.  We got dozens.  Wildlife manager Brit Oleson told me she would release some in a canyon nearby.  She also said that if my hens didn’t find any toms in this group, she could see to it that “one or two rolled off the truck into my yard.”

Forty-two birds. I may regret my efforts to populate the canyon with wild turkeys.

Another bird that appeared with the snow: a single yellow-eyed junco.  Whereas dark-eyed juncos range across North America, yellow-eyes live in the pine forests of Mexico and range into the US only in our tiny corner of southeast Arizona and southwest New Mexico.

I see them in the yard September through May when they come to visit the fountain and scrounge for seed.  But this is the first one since early January.

This Red-backed form of the Dark-eyed Junco looks similar to the Yellow-eyed Junco, except for one obvious distinction.

Something else very cool that came with the snow....  Last October while the son-in-law and I plumbed houses and chased owls in North Dakota, I received a phone call from Jyothi Natarajan, the Program Manager at Haymarket Books.  She said their team had selected me as one of twenty writers for their inaugural Writing Freedom Fellowship.  “But we're asking you to keep this news strictly confidential until our public announcement in February.”

Haymarket Books, working with the Mellon Foundation and the Art for Justice Fund aims to recognize literary voices through the fellowship, “awarding talented emerging and established poets, fiction writers, and creative nonfiction writers impacted by carceral systems for their notable and necessary writing.”

I’m still pinching myself.  Quite an honor to be named among such excellent fellows.

The announcement went public yesterday: Writing Freedom Fellowship

The view of our canyon above the Big Yard. Sometimes with good news you just want to climb mountains.

Or make tracks in the snow on a perfect winter day.

Where do the birds go on a day like this? Six inches of snow fell last weekend. The well is pumping again and the tanks are full. Perfect.

Thanks for subscribing! More coming from the Big Yard as we slide closer to migration! Hummingbirds on the rise!