The Big Yard: Notes from a Pajama Birdwatcher

May 15, 2022

Every once in a while, the magic happens.  Like this morning.  I’m sitting in the yard sipping coffee and watching the trickling fountain, being entertained by orioles and tanagers and the sweetest-looking warbling vireo.  The air is warm, calm, for a change...perfect.  I feel a rising expectation.

High in the chokecherry, a pair of western tanagers gathers first light in their feathers and ignites with xanthene and cinnabar.  Then, as I’m focusing my camera on the birds, something dark joins them.  Black wings and head.  When it flies to the birdbath, I see a white breast dribbled with red as if the bird had been gorging on raspberries.

Rose-breasted Grosbeak!

Rose-breasted grosbeaks have visited the yard only a handful of times, the first one in May of 2009 almost exactly 13 years ago.  More common in the north and eastern US where they breed after wintering in Panama and northern South America (flying across the Gulf of Mexico in one night), RBGs are rare in the West.  In southeast Arizona, they are a special treat, occasionally flying through from Mexico and Central America during spring migration.        

 What’s next?  A yellow grosbeak?  Probably just my affection for cowbirds...