The Big Yard: Notes from a Pajama Birdwatcher

Fall arrives with the towhee of the green tail.

September 15, 2023

Something new and contagious in the air.

To begin with, a homecoming: the first liquid trill of a canyon wren in two dry years sweetens the yard, making the place feel complete once again. Then, a male Gambel’s quail touches down on the roof gutter and I can hardly believe it when I turn my head.  A common desert icon.  But not here.  The bird is #176 for the yard.

But something even larger is in motion, marking a change of the times.  The season’s first red-naped sapsucker alights on the trunk of a peach tree.  It joins a host of other new birds, like the winter sparrows and pine siskins, the green-tailed towhees, vibrant and thrashing and mewing like kittens from the underbrush.

Another fall and winter bird, the Red-naped Sapsucker.

Brewer’s Sparrow, like the White-crowns and Chipping Sparrows (below), a sign of season’s shift.

And occasionally something unusual among the fall migrants, like this rare Clay-colored Sparrow.

Life is change.  Birds and viruses teach us this.

I began this Big Yard project in early 2020 at the height of the Pandemic under quarantine.  And here I am again more than three years later in self-imposed isolation.  Full circle. In my PJs.  I thought I had dodged this bullet with all the precautions—the vaccinations and boosters and masking (we still wear masks at my weekly writing workshop).  Then, last Tuesday, after feeling feverish and achy for a couple of days, I unboxed a Covid-19 Antigen test kit and swabbed away.  Two thick red lines.  Positive.

I still can’t figure out how I got infected.  As a friend says: “You hang out with birds more than people.  Are you sure this isn’t the bird flu?”

Fortunately, the Wife had scheduled a conference in Phoenix and could sidetrack to Flagstaff and visit the kids for the week.  So I’m alone.  I have supplies, a stockpile of dried fruit and nuts and mineral water.  Sun-warm garden tomatoes. A bottle of Ibuprofen.  And I have birds.

I’ll be fine.  This could be beneficial.  As I like to say, I’m only one parasitic infection away from my target weight.

A male Gambel’s Quail and a new addition to the Big Yard list.

This male Flame-colored Tanager, a rarity anywhere in southeast Arizona, has made half a dozen appearances in the yard in September. Here, he affords me an excellent photo opportunity from my office desk window.

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