Sands Through the Hourglass

These past few years have found me increasingly fascinated by the notion of birderly fashion: not just who’s wearing what from BigPockets, but who goes where when and why.

I remember Pete Dunne’s account of his initial discussion with Roger Tory Peterson about a new Big Day competition in New Jersey, in which RTP is reported to have excitedly laid out a route verbatim from his “Century Run” essay in Birds Over America–most of the stops on which were by then little more than hoary memory.  It’s the same for me now on my infrequent visits to New Jersey: I still stop by the Institute Woods causa pietatis, even though I know all the hepcat birders are up at Garrett Mountain.

All this ran through my mind when Alison and I joined Nigel’s Tucson Audubon walk in Sabino Canyon Saturday. It’s a grand place, with scenery that burns itself into your mind even on a pleasantly cool day, but for the birder, somehow, it just ain’t what it used to be.

My first exposure to southeast Arizona as a birding destination was in the late 1970s, when my friend and mentor Ruth came back from a trip to Ramsey and Sabino and all those exotic-sounding places full of the birds I was sure I’d never see. I own the copy of the Lane guide she used then–a cherished gift–and on leafing through it, it strikes me over and over how little the standard route then overlaps with today’s pilgrimage. And it isn’t just that some sites have been degraded or lost; they seem simply to have fallen out of fashion.

Sabino Canyon, Tucson’s great foothills playground, is one of them. As near as I can tell, the birding here hasn’t really changed that much in the last few decades, but I never think of recommending it to out-of-state birders, and far less would I dream of ever taking them there. It remains a great place for common desert birds, and Saturday morning’s walk was full of arrivals like Northern Beardless-Tyrannulet, Bell’s Vireo, and Lucy’s Warbler. Cooper’s Hawks were in breathtaking display overhead, and a pair of American Kestrels was at a nest hole in a saguaro. Hummingbird numbers were up, with Broad-billed Hummingbirds showing well as we approached the dam.

In sum: Nothin’ wrong with the birding. But it just never occurs to me as a destination until someone actively suggests it. Unless it’s your local patch (lucky you!), Sabino Canyon is decidedly out of fashion for birders resident and touristic.

I think it’s a Hebbel play that starts with a young woman moving dresses from the front to the back of her closet: “By the time I get to them, they’ll be fashionable again!” Sabino Canyon’s like that, too, a style and a hemline you just don’t see nowadays. But it will be back, it will be back.