The Big Yard: Notes from a Pajama Birdwatcher

The last Yellow Grosbeak to visit the Big Yard was in 2011.

June 7, 2023

My pajama birdwatching life is now complete. 

I can move on to the next big thing (the next Big Yard?)...or die a happy birdwatcher.  When I started this bird-brained project at the start of the Pandemic more than three years ago, I wrote that the appearance of one particular bird would be the ultimate prize. 

And there have been several. 

Trogons.  A short-tailed hawk.  Last week’s berylline hummingbird, a first for the Mule Mountains.  And last year’s—almost to the day—orange-billed nightingale-thrush, a first for Arizona.

A gorgeous Elegant Trogon from April 2021.

A first for the Mule Mountains, the Short-tailed Hawk, October 2022.

The yard’s 13th hummingbird species, the Berylline Hummingbird.

Arizona’s first recorded, Orange-billed Nightingale-Thrush, June 15, 2022

But today, as I worked at my desk, I looked up through the window and saw a large, stunning yellow bird scooping out chunks at the suet feeder.  “My God!” I said, reaching for my camera...and discovering I’d left it on the back porch.  Watching the bird, I slowly ducked away from the window and turned to run through the house to the back door.

I should know better.  It’s early June, yellow grosbeak season—although I’ve seen only a single female in 12 years.  Last week, one visited a yard in Patagonia sixty miles away.  Yesterday, another came to a feeder in the Chiricahua Mountains. The birds are very rare visitors to Arizona from the Madrean oak woodlands, streams, and canyons of Mexico.  My Sibley guide says there are few confirmed records from Arizona, “despite many reports.”  I post my report on eBird and the administrator, Mark Stevenson, writes to say my observation “is now an important part of the overall picture for this species.”  He asks me to submit my photos and information to the Arizona Bird Committee.  “It’s a good one!”

Indeed.  The text messages are coming in.  People ask permission to visit and try for the grosbeak. Some are already arriving.

As I finish this writing, a birder calls from the yard.  He spotted the yellow grosbeak in the oak above the house and watched it fly to the elderberry.  He’s stoked.  He’s chased the bird for years, mostly in Mexico, and just drove from the Chiricahuas where one visited a jelly feeder in a yard yesterday.  “But not today,” he says, adding that the grosbeaks tend to be one-day wonders.  “This is the third yellow grosbeak in southeast Arizona in the past four days. You have to move on them quickly.”

His eyes shine as he tells me about his sighting (“the large body, that massive silvery-blue bill!”) and that he got photos, “though nothing as good as yours.”

I was lucky.  The bird waited while I ran to the backyard to collect my camera.  And waited for the 45 photos I shot through the window.

I need to wash the window.  It’s yellow grosbeak season after all.

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