Jacana Goes Mainstream

Northern Jacana, Casa Grande, Arizona, November 28, 2008

I had just enough time after dropping Alison at Phoenix this morning to run past the golf course at Casa Grande to pay my respects to the only known Northern Jacana in the US. You’ll recall the furor this bird occasioned when its presence became known last fall: forty years ago, this species bred in the lower Rio Grande Valley, but for an entire generation of birders, ABA-area jacanas have been among the rarest of the rare, worth a chase wherever one shows up.

Last year, every visit to this reliable stray was a social occasion. Not only was the bird almost always easy to see, but I could always count on a happy reunion with old birding companions, or a happy getting to know new birding friends. I don’t think I was ever once there without a crowd to keep me company.

Today is the day after Thanksgiving, a traditional day set aside for birding if ever there was one, and I expected to be standing cheek to jowl on the edge of the golf course pond. Not so. I was the only birder there for the 20 minutes I could spend, and at shortly before noon, mine were the first tires to track the mud from yesterday’s rains. Even more tellingly, I could hear the golfers from across the ponds: “Is the jacana there? Oh, there he is.” And I saw two of them snap the obliging bird’s picture (getting, I hope, better results from their side of the pond than I got from mine).

This Northern Jacana is no longer a birder’s bird, but belongs to everybody now; it’s a local fixture, a golf course mascot, a public curiosity. But I sure like it, and there’s no way this lovely and wackily out-of-place shorebird will ever be ho-hum for me.