Unpredictable Results, Good Finds

There was an article in the paper this morning about scientists planning unmanned missions to Europa, a moon of Jupiter. Some suspect that oceans exist under a thick layer of ice, and a recent study suggests that layer might be about 7 kilometers thick. There could be life in those oceans. There are real unknowns up there that a mission could answer.

Vermilion flycatcher at Wright Elementary in the Garden District

That's how I feel every time I go birding. I have an idea what I might find, but it's impossible to be sure and there might be surprises. Nobody can know.

I suppose this is behind a lot of hobbies. What's the next unusual stamp a stamp collector will find? What's the next rare coin? What novel chess move will your opponent make? Will you find a nugget while panning for gold? What heirloom garden plant will you try next?

This morning I took a brief spin through the Garden District Neighborhood, where I will speak to the neighborhood association on March 18. Not any surprises but 14 species was not bad for a residential area with just homes and a schoolyard.

Variant American wigeon at Ft. Lowell Park

It was interesting to see both vermilion flycatcher and Say's phoebe at the school, the same as at the schoolyard in my neighborhood. I have come to expect a vermilion flycatcher at such places but I am a little more surprised at the regularity of Say's phoebe. I guess I need to visit other schoolyards and test whether vermilion flycatcher is really more reliably found than Say's phoebe.

Then I headed to Fort Lowell Park. This proved to be a visit with 25 well-known bird friends and Sheila, overseer of the Friends of Fort Lowell Park. She was setting up for a gathering of volunteers. They were to do some maintenance at the pond where they have worked with the parks department to fence an area by the pond for ducks and other birds, and plant native plants.

Ring-necked duck at Ft. Lowell Park

Sheila pointed out the unusual American wigeon that's been there all winter--one of about 40 wigeons on the pond. A while back when I passed on Sheila's report of this bird to Mark Stevenson (the real king of Tucson urban birding!). He said he'd seen this "all-creamy-white-except-for-the-green-swirl" bird. A normal variant, he said. American wigeons usually have gray on the side of the head below the "green swirl," with bright white only on the forehead and the top of the head.

There was an impressive male ring-necked duck as well. There were no big hints of spring--I'd hoped to pick up one of the early migrants that birders are starting to report via the birding listserv (choose "Arizona and New Mexico" and hit go), but no luck there. Still it was pleasing to find a red-tailed hawk building a nest in the same tree as last year, and two Cooper's hawks cruising around together looking like fighter jets looking for a dogfight.

Inca dove along Tanque Verde Loop Road

I went on to Tanque Verde Loop Road, where it crosses the Tanque Verde Wash. I don't get why they call it "loop," since it just goes in a straight line, but this is a great birding spot. A bit dangerous walking on the shoulder of the road with cars whizzing by. But who would have predicted I would see two male and two female vermilion flycatchers chasing after each other almost continuously through the trees, or 16 common ravens soaring in big circles joined by a red-tailed hawk (which, for once, they didn't chase off).

Who would have predicted I would find that this is still one of the last strongholds in Tucson of the Inca dove. Once common around town it has almost disappeared, but I heard one behind a thick hedge and then another one came out and perched nicely for me.

Perhaps the only best harbinger of spring the whole day wasn't a bird, but a
spiny lizard poking its head out of a hole under a rock. Early March and it's plenty warm for lizards. Perhaps under global warming it will be lizards that inherit the Earth.

Spiny lizard, Ft. Lowell Park