We arrived home at about 1AM on Thursday, after leaving Tucson around 9AM on Wednesday. Yes, we drove straight through, about 900 miles, in one LONG-ASS day.
Why would we subject ourselves to this? Well, (A) it's not a Big Year if you don't do crazy stuff, and (B) a bird.
After landing in Tucson on about 1:30p Tuesday, we huddled over a late lunch to make our final plans. Should we put in a few hours driving to make the next day's return tolerable, or take one more shot at the Rufous-backed Robin that eluded us before our flight out? Was that even a question?
So, we drove up to Catalina State Park, a nicely preserved slice of the Sonoran desert that used to be in a rural area, but is now surrounded by apartments and shopping malls (if there's anything that Arizona does well, it's Urban Sprawl). This park has a nice campground, and also happens to be where a robin was reported just after Thanksgiving. We would spend the night there, check the place where it had been reported at dusk and then again at dawn, and then marathon home.
The robin had only been reported once, so we knew our odds were slim. But, you can't win if you don't enter, right?
Hikers, joggers, and dog walkers kept the trails fairly busy, which was good for their aerobic capacity and cholesterol levels, but bad for robins. Trying to think like a bird, we quietly wandered up the desert wash where it had been reported, away from the traffic, listening intently for any calls or rustling that might reveal its presence.
And then, rustling! On the bank of the wash, some tall grasses were swaying, but by the way they moved, we could tell the cause of the activity was much bigger than a robin. Pausing, we waited to see if the creature would reveal itself.
Sure enough:
A Hog-nosed Skunk! And he was so cute, snuffling around in the leaf litter. Wanting a better picture, I moved upstream, giving him a wide berth as he wandered out into the open to get a drink from the stream.
But then he started snuffling his way toward me. And his tail moved from horizontal to vertical. Which doesn't seem like a good thing.
Deciding that I didn't need a close-up picture that badly, and that The Wife wasn't going to appreciate 15 hours in the car with a snunky husband, I hastily retreated. Very hastily. The skunk found my actions satisfactory, moseying back into the deep grass with his tail back at ground-level.
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| Hog-nosed Skunk, on the prowl |
After that encounter, we did find many birds, just not the one we wanted. Several types of sparrows, Abert's Towhees, and other typical desert birds flew and hopped around, taking advantage of the gentle stream for drinks and baths. We were surprised by little flock of Lawrence's Goldfinches that flew in to check out the action:
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| Lawrence's Goldfinch, named for George Lawrence, a 19th century ornithologist who was a member of a precursor to the Rat Pack. Along with Spencer Baird and John Cassin, he formed a group known as "The Starlings." Their gossip-worthy exploits tore up both the scientific and socialite worlds for several wild years in the mid-1800s, before an unfortunate event in a Paris club involving a bet, two Can-Can dancers, and multiple bottles of absinthe led to their eventual dissolution. |
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| Hanging with the ladies. |
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| Gray Flycatcher |
But, no Robin that evening, or the next morning, so we hooked up our trailer, cranked the tunes, and made the journey home.
The entire trip was long and exhausting, but successful and fun. We added a total of 13 new birds for the year, bringing us up to 687. The most we realistically could have added was around 16-18, so we're very happy with this.
What's next? Well, there are only about 10 birds IN ALL OF NORTH AMERICA that have been seen in the past two weeks that we don't yet have. We're going to watch the weather and try to pick up a few more this month. Stay tuned!
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