The Big Yard: Notes from a Pajama Birdwatcher

March 27, 2024

The last week in March began with highs in the upper 70s.  The chokecherry unfurled leaves and spilled flowering racemes like tiny yellow bottlebrushes.  The peach trees blushed into bloom almost overnight.  The oaks, as they do every year as the canyon dries out, shifted from winter green to the xanthophylls of leaf-fall.

And then it snowed.

“You can’t have four seasons in one week!” I yelled at the sky.

But Arizona be like: “Hold my beer.”

A male Rufous Hummingbird, harbinger of things to come.

Normally a hummingbird of the summer monsoons, this Violet-crowned Hummingbird is the earliest I’ve recorded for the yard.

A sure sign of spring migration, the magical appearance of a Painted Redstart.

The yard’s first migrating warbler, an Orange-crowned Warbler visits the chokecherry tree.

Time to break out the oranges and grape jelly, the orioles are here!

March winds down with 52 species of birds, a nice bump from the previous months due to the trickling advent of spring migrants like hummingbirds, warblers, and orioles—the “Yucca” oriole always announcing itself with its flutelike song.  This morning’s pair of Brewer’s sparrows at #52 is the anomaly.  The winter birds put in their first appearance at the feeders only now before making off in April to the Great Basin sagebrush to breed.

Normally here all winter, I last saw Brewer’s Sparrow in the yard six months ago.

As the Mexican jays bully their way into the feeders and scatter the sparrows, I hear the son-in-law say, “The motorcycle gang is here.”  Chris stayed with us most of March, the two of us watching birds each morning (wearing our PJs and sipping coffee) before diving headfirst into long days working on projects on the new property.  Long days until dark.  Of clearing brush and trimming trees and building trails, of mixing and hauling tons of concrete for bridge supports and footers for a gazebo of tree trunks we named “Oakhenge.”  Long days of collecting discarded and rusted metal trash, of constructing the essential composting outhouse. 

The Middle Daughter and granddaughter joined us for the latter, Gia being the first to test the outhouse after decorating the interior with a loop of barbed wire circling a sprig of flowering manzanita.  A nice touch.  As was the hand-painted pollinator house for native mason bees she hung outside.   

The bees are on the way.  As are the birds.

No place is complete without an outhouse.

The son-in-law with “Oakhenge” under construction.

“Sotol Bridge”: Sixty feet of redwood spanning Banning Creek.

From the bridge, a trail leads to a Meditation Garden with a Labyrinth (coming soon).

The finest construction of all—Gia’s home for native bees.

Thanks for subscribing! More birds next time as migration picks up!