The Big Yard: Notes from a Pajama Birdwatcher

August 30, 2023

August goes out with a feathered blaze of glory. 

After several 50-species’ days, the Big Yard finishes the month at 85 different birds, including some very nice surprises.  It must be the rising super blue moon—the last one until 2037. 

Two days ago, the first MacGillivray’s warbler in a year threaded the elderberry tree among a pair of early Lincoln’s sparrows—early by a month!  The same day, an Inca Dove cried its “No Hope” song, shaded from the heat by the branches of an oak.  The hummingbird of August (and the 13^th species for the year)—the Allen’s hummingbird—made its third consecutive showing since 2021.  And, absent from the yard for two years, a young yellow-eyed junco materialized out of nothing to pluck grass seeds from the lawn.

Then, this morning, exactly two weeks since the first one ever graced the yard (and the Mule Mountains), a second (!) male flame-colored tanager emerged from the tangled apple tree to gorge on swollen and purple canyon grapes.

It’s months like this when I struggle to take my eyes off the place.  There’s the writing and weed-eating.  The plumbing and planting.  And especially the harvest season with the distraction of picking raspberries for jam or apples and peaches for pie or grapes for wine.  I should camp in the yard.  Who knows what birds I’m missing?

Two different male Flame-colored Tanagers in two weeks visit the yard—the only ones reported in Cochise County.

Normally fairly common in southeast Arizona, the Yellow-eyed Junco.

A rare Allen’s Hummingbird joins nine of species of migrating hummingbirds.

Always a pleasure to find an occasional Inca Dove among the many White-winged and Mourning Doves.

Fall migrants, Lincoln’s Sparrows normally begin arriving in late September.

A female MacGillivray’s Warbler.

Today’s distraction: A Gray Fox watches me from the hillside above the new well.

Distraction #2: Making nectar of the Gods.

From “the Divide” among calling Poor-wills, the Wife and I watch a Super Blue Moon rise over Bisbee.

Thanks for Subscribing! Who knows what September will bring to the Big Yard!