The Big Yard: Notes from a Pajama Birdwatcher

A male Summer Tanager announces the monsoon season.

July 5, 2024

A cool 62 degrees this morning as gray light seeps into the canyon and the whip-poor-wills sing to the predawn.  The air is damp, every blade of grass and shadow of leaf dripping with fallen cloud.  After last evening’s shower, the rain gauge has topped out at 1.67 inches for the monsoon so far—not exactly robust for the Mule Mountains but enough to shift browns to greens.

I think about how water is a holy thing in the desert.  I’ve come across stone pools in sun-cracked, shadowless borderlands that were no larger than a carved marble stoup.  Shallow tinajas scattered among miles of sand like grace sprinkled from an aspergillum. This place raises water to the level of sacrament, blessed by wind and the bone dust of those who have come and never left, those who have knelt and wet their brows with water enough for two fingers. 

Monsoon.  My favorite time of year.  It’s an actual season we’ve added to the traditional four.  (I could add a few more.)  And, as if to proclaim the season to the world, a summer tanager sings a three-chord progression—all refrain without intro, verse, or coda—from the fruiting elderberry tree. He likes bar chords.

I accept it as a welcome home after spending the past week on the California coast.

I took tools.  It was a work trip—a repair and replace job for the Long Beach uncle’s 50-year-old, dilapidated redwood fence.  But the wife scheduled a couple days at the end for Dana Point, our go-to place on the Left Coast with its family history of summer waves, beach weddings, pizza, tacos, and grunion runs.

And lately, since the kids are grown and with families of their own, for the birds. 

A Caspian Tern wings above San Juan Creek estuary at Dana Point. Elegant and Royal Terns also frequent this place.

A Snowy Egret forages for crustaceans along the rocky shoreline of the Island at the Dana Point marina.

This Red-breasted Merganser was a nice surprise, lounging on one of the docks at Dana Point marina.

A few years ago, I reported a rare (for southern CA) American Oystercatcher at Dana Point and later withdrew my report after the eBird administrator flagged it for review and asked for more description “like behavior and vocalizations and habitat.” He also wanted photos. I felt vindicated last weekend when I photographed this American Oystercatcher on the jetty (center left).

If you grow tired of shorebirds, a conservation area on the Dana Point bluff offers songbirds like this Bushtit. I’ve seen California Thrashers, California Towhees, and rare California Gnatcatchers here (below).

California Thrasher

California Gnatcatcher

Before the beach wedding, there was the Middle Daughter and her grunion.

Thanks for subscribing! More birds to come as the monsoons heat up in July!