The Big Yard: Notes from a Pajama Birdwatcher
April 13, 2022
We have a neighborhood watch on Mule Pass. But it’s not what you think. No one is reporting suspicious activity to keep the neighborhood safe and reduce crime. We may have suspicious activity, but we don’t have any crime; in fact, we only lock our cars during zucchini harvest season. No police—unless they’re birdwatchers.
No, right now, what my neighbors are watching for are Lucifer hummingbirds.
By mid-April, hummingbirds swarm the feeders like bees. Rufous from oak woodlands in southwestern Mexico on their way north to Alaska; Calliope following them as far as the Pacific Northwest; Costa’s from northern Mexico traveling even less. Others from Mexico and Guatemala: Broadbills and broadtails. Even the magnificent Rivoli’s (or Rivoli’s magnificent) from Nicaragua. To date, 9 species in multiples approaching several dozen birds. The first Lucifer, always a gorgeous ochre female, will come in at number 10.
I saw my first Lucifer, a female (life bird #359), from the bedroom window in 2010, and I’ve seen them more than fifty times since, but only here. That morning, I thought What is that? when I glanced at the feeder hanging just beyond the window as the perched bird cocked its head and stared back at me through its mascara and down its long curl of beak.
At the time, only a handful of records existed for the hummingbird in the Mule Mountains. According to the Arizona Breeding Bird Atlas they breed here, so the neighbors are watching the dry, exposed, and steep slopes of our canyon for tiny nests of plant duff and lichen bound with spider silk. We’re listening for the male’s loud whirring courtship as he flares his amethyst throat and forked tail and shuttles above the female at work on her nest or incubating her pair of white eggs.
This morning, like every morning all month, I scan each hummingbird hovering at my feeders and flowers, listening for that tell-tale pitch of Lucifer wings like strumming the a-string on a bass guitar. The buzz of blackchins and rufous turns my head. The buffy-flanked female broadtails pull binoculars to my eyes. Is that a drooping bill?
When I hear a text tone, I check my messages. “Luci is here!” writes my neighbor, adding a starry-eyed emoticon to rub it in. She always gets them first. Sometimes weeks ahead of me, like this year. Even though I’ve raised my sugar concentration, three have been visiting her feeders. But not mine.
I look up and something dark-headed and suspicious zips away. Just like the other day, I think. She had invited me to photograph her Lucifer hummingbirds and after an hour, when they finally showed, I was distracted.
“I don’t believe it!” said Lucifer’s Mistress. “You are looking at your phone!”
A special thanks to my neighbor, “Lucifer’s Mistress,” for loaning me her awesome hummingbirds today. One has already followed me home this evening!
Incredible!