deep down the rabbit-hole

Birding is, admittedly, an eccentric hobby – and, as with most niche obsessions, things get weirder the deeper one goes down the rabbit-hole of serious ornithology. Birding has its own language, centered on bird taxa and the frequency of their occurrence in a given location. There are clubs that do bird counts and elected committees that adjudicate sightings and compile bird lists. D is thankful for their efforts, without which his relatively casual engagement with this hobby would not be possible.

The Arizona Bird Committee (ABC), for example, maintains an official review list, which currently contains 157 species submitted for authentication by eager birders across the state. The committee meets annually to determine whether there is enough evidence to confirm any of these sightings to add them to the state’s official list, which currently numbers 565 different species.

Of the birds on the ABC list, roughly forty percent are classified as either “casual” – birds that are rare in Arizona but have been recorded often enough not to warrant a formal report – or “accidental,” in the case of birds that have only been seen a handful of times. There are also a couple of “hypothetical” entries – birds that have had a credible sighting, but have not been documented with physical evidence, like photographs or actual specimens.

This last bit is where D departs from most birders, who tend to approach the hobby with binoculars in hand and count birds they have heard but not seen. D’s entrée into birding was through photography. With the exception of obvious or common species, D cannot identify most birds by sight and or sound alone. For example, there are dozens of different warbler species that have been sighted in Arizona, many of them quite similar in appearance and nearly all of them tiny, agile, and furtive. The only way D can be sure of what he sees is by taking photos and then poring through bird books and websites.

Birding has a competitive side too, with ornithologists vying to see who can log the most different species during the so-called Big Year – a contest that entered the mainstream consciousness thanks to Steve Martin, Jack Black, and Owen Wilson. This side of birding also appeals to D, who likes making lists and keeping track, though his ambitions are quite a bit more modest, constrained as they are by time, resources, and D’s habit of only counting birds he has photographed.

During our month and change in Arizona, D has photographed 67 different birds to date – roughly 12 percent of the species that are known to occur in the state. This includes 29 birds he had never seen before, including some real treats: the vibrant summer tanager and lazuli bunting, the colorful cedar waxwing and yellow-breasted chat, and several raptors, some of which – like the common black hawk – occur in very small numbers in the United States.

Of course, it is always the ones that get away that prey on D’s mind, like the Gambel’s quail that crossed in front of our car a few hundred yards from our house. The bird is unmistakable, but because D was unable to snap a picture, he does not count it and hopes to see it again when he has his camera handy.

From top to bottom: great horned own, summer tanager, American avocet, bald eagle, juniper titmouse, common black hawk, cedar waxwing — all of them new to us.