The Big Yard: Notes from a Pajama Birdwatcher

August 23, 2023

There is no room at the feeders.  Hummingbirds double up at the ports while a swarm hovers in the wings waiting its turn.  I list nine species, mostly juvenile blackchins and broadbills and rufous—among pairs of violet-crowns, broadtails, and Lucifer—refueling before the journey southward.  Two gallons of nectar a day now.  I need a bank loan.

The hummingbirds pull my attention away from the warblers, which seem to sneak to the fountain through the trees out of fear.  I feel it too.  The dread of tiny whirling bodies with sharpened spears.

A Hermit Warbler ducks in for a drink at the fountain.

A male Lucifer Hummingbird waits patiently in the chokecherry for a turn at the feeder.

I leave the birds to the yard and hike up the canyon to the well so I can send more water to the orchard tank at new property.  On the trail, I nearly step in a large pile of fresh scat.  Bear? Mountain lion?  I text a photo to the Wildlife Biologist, and she asks if I see a scrape with a pile of leaves.  “Bears don’t make scrapes,” First Daughter says.

I see two bare spots, side by side, with leaves pushed over the scat to the opposite side.

“Lion!  And probably a male! she texts. “Put a camera there!”

She doesn’t know it, but I already have.  A week ago, I strapped one of the trail cams she gave me to a tree just up the trail.  Now, I pull its memory card.  And, after the photos of javelina and deer and turkeys, there he is.  With a timestamp of 3:23am this morning.  Then, one last image snapped only an hour ago.

I love this wild place.

Last week, we completed the property site work.  The road is clear and seeded with native grama grasses.  The orchard and vineyard raked of catclaw.  The brush piles hauled off to the transfer station in eleven giant truckloads totaling 5.4 tons of branches and roots.  Good riddance. 

I planted the first blackberry bush.

With the front gate back in place, the kids send suggestions for a name for the property—44 acres of bird-thick oak and manzanita along Banning Creek in the heart of the Mule Mountains.  Names like: “The Writer’s Roost,” or “Bisbee Bird Sanctuary,” or “The Poet’s Perch.”  With a writer’s shed signed “The Knocking Thrush” and family cemetery called “The Last Chapter.”

I’m favoring First Daughter’s idea: The Big Yard Observatory of Birds.  BYOB.  Or, as one son-in-law says, “Bring Your Own Birds.”

Pajamas required.

The Old Mule Road, gateway to the Big Yard Observatory of Birds.

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