The Big Yard: Notes from a Pajama Birdwatcher

Sage Thrasher, yard bird #178.

January 27, 2025

Birdwatching is a study in punctuated equilibrium, a theory from biology to explain evolution’s long periods of quiescence marked by isolated episodes of rapid change, as in the rise of new species.

Or like the long solitude of incubation between the laying and the hatching.

Or like the endless days of quiet watching between the abrupt moments of seeing.

It’s been three months since the last new yard bird, a common ground dove (#177), appeared in October. Before that, stretched five months when a rare black-and-white warbler (#176) pushed my monthly total to a record 100 species. In all the watching—over 600 hours—just two new birds punctuated 2024.

But this week, something new among the same: The same daily sparrows of winter, the juncos and siskins (73 this morning!) and bright cutouts of cardinals, pyrrhuloxias, and phainopeplas. For two days, a bird I’d never seen in the yard came to the fountain to drink the icy water.

Fortunately, I managed a few photos while it stood on the frozen pond before it disappeared again into the undergrowth—sage thrasher!

My first look: Sage Thrasher on thin ice.

North America is home to eight thrasher species, five of which live in Arizona—the comical and common, desert-dwelling curve-billed, Bendire’s, crissal, LeConte’s, and sage. The sage thrasher is the smallest and, true to its name, loves brushy undergrowth where it scurries about on an endless quest for insects.

The most commonly seen Arizona thrasher, the Curve-billed.

Probably the second-most common thrasher in Arizona, the Crissal Thrasher.

One of North America’s eight thrasher species, the California Thrasher—this pair from Dana Point.

Dawn, my Birding Bestie at Dana Point, writes that people discussing the rare bird alert for Orange County are saying sage thrashers are “suddenly all over the county this week.” A friend in Portal in the Chiricahuas says it’s been an exceptional season for the bird, “everyone seems to have one in their yard this year.” Many are calling the winter migrant surge of sage thrashers an “irruption.” Before my sighting, eBird listed only a few occurrences of the thrasher in the Mule Mountains over the past decade. The last time I saw one in Arizona was 2002 while hiking with my compadre Chuck LaRue at Wupatki National Monument near Flagstaff.

It looks like for the Big Yard, 2025 is off to a good start.

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