The Big Yard: Notes from a Pajama Birdwatcher

December 2, 2024

A warm December saunters in with 38 species of birds after closing the door on November’s 48. It’s the season of sparrows...again. Dozens come to the fountain to drink and bathe. Flocks of chipping sparrows and white-crowns, mixing with one Brewer’s sparrow, two kinds of juncos (dark-eyed and yellow-eyed), towhees, and the occasional pair of black-chinned and Lincoln’s sparrows.

A young Black-chinned Sparrow.

A bi-colored bill identifies this as a “red-backed” form of Dark-eyed Junco. Rare for our area.

A “pink-sided” form of Dark-eyed Junco with some peculiar facial markings?

Unlike Dark-eyed Juncos, the Yellow-eyed Junco ranges only as far north as southeastern Arizona.

Last week, when a single white-throated sparrow stepped away from a cluster of white-crowned and wove through the chokecherry thicket to the water, I had to check my notes, again. The last time I saw one of these winter sparrows of the eastern US in the yard was 12 years ago.

And here it is again today.

White-throated sparrows are rare transients in southeast Arizona, preferring dense undergrowth and streamside brush piles. After breeding in summer in the coniferous forests of northern Canada, the birds fly south after sunset, probably navigating by the stars. I’ve seen them in Grand Forks, North Dakota, and Yachats, Oregon, and even in the nearby Chiricahua Mountains, where they are regular visitors to woodland feeders. But that one brief appearance at the copper birdbath in 2012 was the first one for the yard, and the first one in my life.

Since then, I’ve listened for the clear, metallic chink of their call hoping to catch sight of the mustard-lored gender-benders. This one, I notice, has a tan-striped head. Rather than white-striped.

It seems tan-striped white-throated sparrows only mate with white-striped white-throated sparrows. Because there are white-striped males and white-striped females, tan-striped males and tan-striped females, each group reproduces with only one fourth of the population. In other words, there are four distinct sexes.

Biologists Elaina Tuttle and Rusty Gonser discovered that this blurring the lines of what we might see as “normal” has to do with sex chromosomes and genes and things called “inversions”—all too much to explain here. But suffice to say, the emergence of these four sexes, although driven by genes, doesn’t involve anatomy. White-stripes can still mate with white-stripes, and tan-stripes with tan-stripes. The wobbly bits still work.

But it’s the sparrow’s behavior that separates the species into four sexes.

White-throated sparrows remind us that gender is a human construct.

Not one of nature.

I sink into the sound of trickling water and the calming flutter of sparrows as I come up for air after a week with the three daughters, their husbands, and four grandchildren. This Thanksgiving was our turn to host. And because the wife and I don’t do anything small, we hosted the lot at the new property with picnic tables, games, and bonfires. One son-in-law arrived early to set up his White Duck canvas tent and chop wood. We had outdoor movie night on a big screen, the projector powered by a gas generator. (The Muppet Christmas Carol for the wife and grandkids; Die Hard for the boys.) I butterflied one turkey for the grill and another for the pit-roast.

It took a Bobcat to excavate the hole.

The Daughters, keeping a close watch over the pit-roasting turkey. Four hours in the ground.

The finished result.

Serving it up.

Setting up movie night.

Thanks for reading! More birds on the way!