A Beautiful Day

Every autumn there is that day when you wake up and the season has changed. Here in southeast Arizona, the humidity of the monsoon vanishes overnight, returning us to the bright skies and clear horizons we enjoy most of the year, and suddenly the heat no longer oppresses. And birders wake up and open their windows, turn off the noisy air conditioners, and head for winter sites in the desert.

I opened the windows and shut off the a/c this morning, but it was nearly 11 before I could get away to one of my favorite cool-season birding locales, Catalina State Park. With a start that late, I was resigned to not seeing many birds, but thought that a nice walk along the wash would be pleasant anyway.

Surprise. Even at mid-day, Sutherland Wash was full of birds: maybe not as many as I might have seen with an early start, but still quite enough to confirm my sense that the seasons had indeed changed overnight.

For some species, of course, it is still summer. Rufous-winged Sparrows, my favorite bird, as some of you may have guessed, were up and singing in good numbers, offering a detailed tutorial in that species’ so variable song.

This one was singing a “drink-your-tea” song, like a distant Eastern Towhee.

Blue Grosbeaks, too, were still in breeding mode; one pair was in anxious attendance on an incredibly clumsy young fledgling. Frantic chipping drew my attention just in time to see the youngster fly across the wash and hit the rocks on the other side, thud, and slide down the wall like a cartoon character. The parents were still fussing when I left; there is something cruel in a nature that teaches young birds to fly before it teaches them to land! Here is a photo of the anxious father, taken before I figured out what everybody was up to and left them in peace.

But it was the migrants that made my walk so exciting. Nothing rare, but to hear the canary-like warblings of a flock of Brewer’s Sparrows and the whining mewls of Green-tailed Towhees made the breeze feel even cooler and the air even softer. Wilson’s and MacGillivray’s Warblers were in the thickets, and the Empidonax selection included a single Gray, a Willow, and a calling male Pacific-slope Flycatcher, that last among 3 or 4 “Westerns.”

When I was young, I loved above all those 3 or 4 weeks of true fall we had in September and October; and now that I am in Arizona, I love above all those 6 months of beautiful weather, beautiful skies, and beautiful birds, all of which started today!