Mad AZ Monk

Major False Alarm

Had to jump to the red phone last night. My email box was electric with reports of a possible Aztec Thrush...in Nogales? In the Chiricahuas? Nope. Right in my little town of Sedona.

The report came from Jodi, a Flagstaff birder who works at the Museum of Northern Arizona and heard it from a colleague. I called her and she vouched for the guy, though she did mention he wasn't a birder, but rather a paleontologist who tags along on bird research trips.

"Jodi," said I, "you sure he didn't see an archaeopteryx?"

"Har-de-har," said Jodi. "Good luck."

So after zipping off a few email inquiries, I snoozed, got up early, plopped on my pith helmet and drove to Jordan Trail. I bore the burden of promises to my poor friend Tom to call him the exact second I saw the bird. He could not unchain himself from his desk and he'd rather gaze upon an Aztec Thrush than discover a chest full of gold doubloons. They'd eluded him each time they'd shown up across the border, which is like once every 2-3 years, and, frankly, he's not getting any younger.

My bud Roger joined me -- AZTH being one of the few lifers possible for him these days -- and we scoured the joint for about 2 1/2 hours. As they say on cop shows, we had the hinky feeling it wasn't going to pan out. The junipers weren't in berry, there was only a little water in depressions along the slickrock washes, and the only other thrushes present were a couple of scraggly-looking robins. The additional presence of a Phainopepla pair and a lone Western Tanager offered a slight ray of hope, but really very slight. There are only a handful of records from far southern Arizona and none from Maricopa County, which contains Phoenix and is still 100 miles south of us.

Toward the end, Rog emerged from the scrub and thought he'd figured it out. He had had a few moments of doubt watching what turned out to be a Spotted Towhee pop in and out of a bush. There were enough superficial similarities that he thought that could have been the error. I personally thought it was the distraction of the stegasaurus skeleton, but I let him have his way.

When I dragged my sweaty butt home, I quickly put office-bound Tom on suicide watch, and opened an email from ace birder Mark that read, "Beware the juvenile Spotted Towhee." With that, my fever broke and I got on with what passes for my life.

Now I'm off the devour the rest of Mark Obmascik's The Big Year. Ya'll read that? It totally rocks.

You guys have any summer stories of juveniles that fooled you?

Posted by MadMonk at July 23, 2004 05:20 AM