The Big Yard: Notes from a Pajama Birdwatcher

May 1, 2022

This week, a gray blur in the alligator juniper drew the camera to my eyes.  Warbler? Vireo?  Both?  The bird remained hidden, but its song could not, an exuberant aria of vider-veedee-vider-veedee-vider-veet with the rising insistence on the last note hanging in the air as if not be questioned.  Then the blur stepped into the open.

At last, the warbling vireos had joined the vireos of lesser voices.

April brought 93 different birds to the Big Yard and, at five more species than last year, a new all-time high for the month.  Highlights include eleven warblers, with the astounding return of a Grace’s; six flycatchers, Hammond’s, dusky, and gray among them; the five vireos; and a first-ever trio of great-tailed grackles (yard bird #168).

I know.  For some, grackles rank up there with pigeons.  But they do count!  And if one of those feral doves of urban landscapes and city parks visited my yard today, the bird would check off at #169.

New yard birds: male (right) and female Great-tailed Grackles

The arrival of the five vireos is another first for April.  Drab, retiring LGBs (Little Gray Birds) of oak woodlands and thorn thickets.  (If the birds are brown, I learned in college ornithology class, they’re called LBJs: “Little Brown Jobs.”) 

Except for the Hutton’s vireo, which is a year-round resident in southeast Arizona (as well as throughout its range in central Mexico and the Pacific coast), the vireos in my yard spill in from Central America and the west coast of Mexico.  The seasonal drive to push north is strong.  All but one, the Cassin’s vireo, which is heading for breeding grounds in the Pacific Northwest, nest in Arizona.

Introducing the Big Yard’s only vireos to date—the Vireo Five:

From April 26, #93 for the month, the Warbling Vireo.

#64 for April, Bell’s Vireo, named for John Graham Bell, a NY taxidermist and friend of John James Audubon.

#58, the leaden one, Plumbeous Vireo.

#42 for April, Hutton’s Vireo, named for William Rich Hutton, a 19th century US surveyor and artist.

#41, Cassin’s Vireo, named for the 19th century ornithologist John Cassin.

Thanks for subscribing and sharing! Up next—it’s cowbird season!