The Big Yard: Notes from a Pajama Birdwatcher

November 29, 2023

The month finishes in style with a rare bird.  A few days ago, a thrush materialized at the fountain for a drink, and I noticed it looked different from the hermit thrushes now visiting the yard for the winter.  The splotches on its breast leaned more toward blurry umber than a hermit’s crisp black.  And a pale but distinct line connected both eye rings across its beak as if the bird were wearing spectacles.  When it stood up, its tail showed the same dark brown as its back rather than the expected rufous.

            Swainson’s thrush!

The thrush is named for the self-taught, 19th century British ornithologist and artist William J. Swainson.  But not for long, with the plan to revise eponymous bird names.  Some suggest “mosquito thrush” for its habit of chasing flying insects.  But, since “hermit” is already taken, I favor “antisocial thrush.”

The rufous tail says Hermit Thrush, a common winter visitor to the yard.

Swainson’s thrushes, whose fluting calls haunt the northern woodlands all summer, are long-distance night-fliers nesting in the boreal forests of Canada and Alaska and wintering in South America.  They are very rare in the US after October.

After I reported the thrush, Mark Stevenson, the local eBird administrator, emailed saying my sighting had been accepted and was now an important part of the overall picture for the species. “They are extremely rare this time of year,” he added. “Thanks for your photos which made reviewing it a pleasure.”

The Swainson’s thrush, following on the heels of an uncommon black-chinned sparrow, topped the yard at 44 species for the month.   Mine was the only one reported in Arizona, returning to the yard for several days as if it were some kind of otherworldly messenger.

A Black-chinned Sparrow at the fountain.

Last year on this date there were no birds.  That was the day my friend and mentor of 35 years migrated beyond this world.  Dick Shelton was 89.  The other day my youngest daughter shared with me a book she had retrieved from his shelves before we sold his house last April.  On page 12, she had found a slip of paper with an unfinished poem in Dick’s mostly illegible handwriting.  Reading it, I knew the poem had been inspired by words he had just read from his dear friend, Ann Zwinger.  And I had a vague memory of the story behind the poem: the two of them had abandoned a desert writers conference for a couple days to romp around Nevada and play the slots in Vegas and Reno. In the poem, Dick writes about wandering like children “without any keeper.”  And how “there was no tomorrow/there was no grim reaper.”  

Dick had introduced me to Ann before her death in 2014, first through her writing and later in person.  The three of us drove around Tucson pointing out birds and “roadside botanizing,” as Ann called it. I like to imagine the pair of them, like children, continuing the tour.

Richard Shelton, 1933-2022

Thanks for subscribing. I’m in Flagstaff for the rest of the week, visiting with the daughters. The Big Yard and its amazing birds will return soon!