The Big Yard: Notes from a Pajama Birdwatcher

My longest shadow on the shortest day.

January 2, 2024

This morning, the planet tilts in its orbit closest to the sun and I’m wrapped in a blanket while watching my breath rise from my lungs.  Thirty degrees.  Distance means nothing at this angle of repose, I think, leaning my chair back on two legs.  But at least we’re corkscrewing through space in the direction of light.

My first bird of the New Year flew into the kitchen window as I brewed coffee.  Canyon towhee.  With a headache.  The bird, not me—these days the wife and I are unconscious in bed long before the party even gets started.  A week at Dana Point with the kids and grandkids was festive enough.  The warm beaches and tidepools.  The early morning shorebirds and lattes.  The pizza and breadsticks.  And this time, the El Nino Surge.

Waves crash over the jetty at Dana Point. The day before the grandkids and I were fishing there.

Cute as a button, a rare California Gnatcatcher of the coastal scrublands.

Six species of towhee live in the US: Spotted, Eastern, Green-tailed, Abert’s, Canyon, and this one, the California Towhee.

A Red-throated Loon in nonbreeding plumage.

The year 2023 brought me 276 species of birds, 65 of them at Dana Point alone, including life bird #474, a red-throated loon, fishing the dark waters of Dana Harbor.

The Big Yard hosted 134 birds, some of them new for the yard and rare for all of southeast Arizona.  Like the crowd-pleasing yellow grosbeak of summer.  And the stunning flame-colored tanager.    

In March, the yard’s first Blue-gray Gnatcatcher (#172) made an appearance.

The month of May saw the yard’s first Berylline Hummingbird (#173).

In June, the second Yellow Grosbeak (since 2011) arrived at the suet feeders.

Two different male Flame-colored Tanagers (#174) visited the yard for the first time in August and September.

October brought the last new yard bird of 2023, a Song Sparrow (#176).

The canyon towhee soaks his head in the fountain.  Then his whole body, though I’m the one who’s shivering.  “According to birding tradition,” says Margaret Renkl in her new book, The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year, “the first bird you see on the first day of the new year sets the tone for your next twelve months.  Like her, I’m content to let the bird be only a bird.  But I can’t help searching for a few symbolic associations. 

I learn that towhees are shy chicken-scratchers and skulkers of the underbrush, rushing into the thickets at the slightest disturbance.  Yep.  Good advice.  This year I will see the value of going forward...keeping my feet on the ground, being quiet and secretive, stirring things up, and always ready to duck for cover.

Three species of towhee visit the yard: Spotted, Green-tailed, and this one, the Canyon Towhee.

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