The Big Yard: Notes from a Pajama Birdwatcher

After arriving from Mexico in the spring, Brown-crested Flycatchers breed across southern Arizona, favoring large trees with old woodpecker holes for nesting.

April 22, 2024  Earth Day

This morning, the year’s first brown-crested flycatcher announces its arrival in the canyon with a loud, raucous keweerp, keweerp, keweerp as if only now the party may begin.  Earth Day.  A door swung wide open.  Enter the season of the flycatcher.

Kingbird tyrants to phoebes and pewees to the cresteds and tiny empids like the Hammond’s flycatchers that already sally from the oaks to pluck insects out of the air.  Soon, the others will come, 15 species or more to sing and feed and raise their young.  Time to clear the nest box from last year’s “brown-crusty” brood.

The season’s first Empidonax (Empid) flycatcher, the Hammond’s flycatcher, migrates through Arizona from the Sierra Madres in Mexico to breeding grounds in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska.

Last week, the Wife asked me—she says “commandeered” me—to help with her “staff retreat” at Parker Canyon Lake—sandwiches, drinks, pontoon boat.  I “volunteered” for the flycatchers.

I rose at 3am and drove through Arizona’s wine country (Sonoita and Elgin) and the Cinnamon Hills to the oak- and pine-clad western flanks of the Huachuca Mountains to meet the sunrise at Scotia Canyon near the lake.  I should have packed warmer clothing.  At least gloves.  I should know by now that, at 237 Watts per meter per degree Kelvin (W/m•K), the aluminum in my binoculars and camera are efficient thermal conductors.  Of the cold.  As my numb fingers attested to.

Even so, the birds were stunning.

A (mostly) perennial stream (above and below) runs through Scotia Canyon, home to some of the best birding in southeast Arizona.

Scotia Canyon is the place I come to for breeding Buff-breasted Flycatchers, our smallest Empid, which prefer dry, open forests of northern Mexico and southeastern Arizona for nesting.

I came for the flycatchers but got treated by warblers—like this beautiful Grace’s Warbler.

Scotia Canyon is also my go-to in April for breeding Elegant Trogons, the birdwatchers’ prize.

The brown-cresteds loop the yard, screaming from one oak tree after another.  Then another new Myiarchus flycatcher—this one an ash-throated—materializes in the elderberry tree (probably wondering what all the flycatcher fuss is about).  My neighbor’s donkeys begin to bray.  I smell manure in the warm air.

Just in time, I think.  Bring on the lord of the flies!

Very similar but slightly smaller than the Brown-crested, the Ash-throated Flycatcher also feeds on berries.

My favorite image from Scotia Canyon, the Buff-breasted Flycatcher.

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