The Big Yard: Notes from a Pajama Birdwatcher

December 20, 2024

Predawn darkness. I’m awakened by screaming chickens and stumble with flashlight into the yard to lay 30 degrees against bare skin. A hen stands on the brick walkway outside the coop. Others cluck excitedly from the run. I pull open the gate and move to the hutch. Nothing. Then, after stirring the straw bedding, I step back and see it. Face level. A ringtail stares at me from the corrugated metal roof.

“Oh, you’re the one causing all the commotion,” I say into the moist black eyes.

The chickens will have none of it. Don’t expect us to lay any eggs now, they tell me.

“Sure,” I say. “Like it’s too cold or too hot...or we’re molting...or we saw a skunk—you’re worthless. Always full of excuses. Fine. No more mealworms then.”

The fat birds just look at me. The ringtail, which has climbed to a post above the coop, looks at the fat birds.

I decide to release the chickens into the yard since the sun is rising and they don’t like being watched behind wire. Chicken in a box, the wife calls it. When I turn around, the ringtail slips off its perch and crawls back into the hutch—where he’ll spend the day curled into the straw of a nestbox.

It’s like I’ve always said: The path to seeing wildlife is the one that leads to raising chickens.

Ringtails, sometimes called “miner’s cats” for their habit of living around people and under old shacks (or in attics), are nocturnal and related to raccoons and coati.

Today, the path to the coop leads to sparrows, which have made all the difference.

This month, the yard has hosted a record 12 species, including several rarities like the continuing white-throated sparrow and a new one for the year, a single clay-colored sparrow. And two appearances from a pair of black-throated sparrows I’ve seen previously here only seven times in 15 years.

I don’t know why I buy sunflower seeds. Sparrows love cheap chicken scratch.

The Black-throated Sparrow, not uncommon in western desert scrub, but a nice surprise for the yard.

A rare winter resident in Southeast Arizona, the Clay-colored Sparrow. I had only 13 sightings for the yard, the last one in October ‘23.

This White-throated Sparrow has been visiting the yard for more than a month. The first one appeared 12 years ago

Black-chinned Sparrows are normally rare for the yard. But this winter I see them daily.

A common winter resident of the underbrush, the Lincoln’s Sparrow.

The ever-present (in winter), Chipping Sparrow. Notice the difference between this one and the Brewer’s Sparrow below?

Tomorrow is the winter solstice when the northern hemisphere leans farthest in repose and shadows pull their longest darkness. The wife and I plan on celebrating Saturnalia with a bonfire and roasted flesh on the bone, curled up in blankets under the bright stars and brighter planets to await the return of light. Putting the past in the past and joining an uncertain future, come what may.

Among the festivities—the food and fire and drink, the songs and dancing and revelry—there will be leeches and blood-letting.

More of that to come.

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