The Big Yard: Notes from a Pajama Birdwatcher

February 28, 2024

At first light this morning, a hermit thrush sips water at the top of the fountain, raises its head and flashes its wings.  The bird, and a recent ruby-crowned kinglet, top the yard count at 44 species for the month, about average for February.

I missed a few days here, but I didn’t miss these birds.

From my seat in front of the backyard fountain, I lift my throbbing legs to the mesquite bench in front of me, resting my bare feet on worm-holed wood.  My legs carry the memory of every stairstep of the seven-mile South Kaibab Trail, the shortest route to the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon and a 5000-foot descent through two billion years of geologic history.  From the rim’s young gray Kaibab Limestone to the river’s black Vishnu Schist, basement rock of the planet.

My feet hold a few excruciating memories of their own.  The nailbeds of both big toes have blackened after the hammering they took in my Danner boots with each downward step.  No worries.  I didn’t like those ugly toenails anyway.

This isn’t to say that the three-day backpacking trip wasn’t glorious.  There’s something about pain that reminds you you’re alive.  And something about remote places of extraordinary beauty that remind you how precious your life is.

At our camp along Bright Angel Creek near Phantom Ranch, hermit thrushes sifted through leafy duff.  Ruby-crowned kinglets flicked wings and chanted from the dry seep willow.  A single raven croaked in hoarse baritone from a naked cottonwood.

But mostly there was the company of writers and family, the talk of good books, and the sipping of fine bourbon under a black pelt of stars with blue moonlight falling down canyon walls.

I hardly felt the stony ground beneath my mummy bag.

The intrepid trekkers at the Kaibab trailhead…our smiles quickly disappear.

The Kaibab trail, like climbing the Empire State Building five times, so they say. Mostly I carried images of Frodo and Mount Doom.

The Black Bridge spans the Colorado River near Phantom Ranch.

The Colorado River where it carves canyons out of 1.7-billion-year-old metamorphic Vishnu Schist.

Rainbow trout are not native to Bright Angel Creek and the Colorado River. Upstream from here, a fish weir prevents the trout from entering the creek where the NPS is returning native fish like flannelmouth suckers.

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