Miscellanea

January 3, 2023

I’m feeling too lazy this morning to come up with any organized presentation for the day’s post, so I’ll just blurt out some odds and ends about the day. I might not even be posting the day at all, but a day with two new birds for the year must be recognized.

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For those that still might be unclear on why we’ve come down to Tucson for four winters in a row, here’s a partial explanation:

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I got out early for a walk in the neighborhood again, inspired by reading in All about Birds that Abert's Towhees are sedentary birds that live out their lives in small, permanent territories. If so, I should have a chance to get a better look at him some morning. He’s not there this morning, but there is a mourning dove cooing in the mesquite immediately in front of our house when I step out the door. I didn’t post a photo of the first one I saw, so let’s include one here:

In case you weren’t sure what a mourning dove looks like.

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In writing the above, I looked up the verbiage from All About Birds that I remembered from before, pasted it in after I’d already written in Albert’s towhee myself, and then looked at this: Albert’s towhees Abert's Towhees are sedentary birds and was startled to see that I’ve always misread the name of the bird. It’s Abert, not Albert. Abert is such an unusual name that it immediately brought to mind Lake Abert, the large lake in southeast Oregon rimmed on the east by Abert Rim, a 2,500’ fault scarp that’s one of the highest fault scarps in the United States. I’ve always meant to go down there and bike along the base of that rim, on the lonely road between Valley Falls and Wagontire.

I wondered if it was the same Abert, did some Wiki-research, and confirmed that it was: John James Abert (17 September 1788 – 27 January 1863) was a United States soldier. He headed the Corps of Topographical Engineers for 32 years, during which time he organized the mapping of the American West. Captain John C. Fremont named Lake Abert and Abert Rim in his honor when his 1843 expedition passed through southern Oregon. The Abert’s Squirrel and Abert’s Towhee and were also named after him.

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The day gets off to an excellent start when Rachael hears back from the pharmacies that her two prescriptions have both been filled and are ready to be picked up. For reasons too complicated to explain, two different pharmacies are involved - the Safeway on west Saint Mary’s filled one, and the CVS on University has the other. It’s still early enough in the day that there’s time to drive around and pick them up, which we do and return to the house in under a half hour.

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With the modest amount of snow the mountains received in the last two days we decide it’s the right time to bike out the Oro Valley and see the Catalina Range from its northern, snowier side before it melts off. We leave about noon, bike to our usual break spot 20 miles from home, and are back before 4:30. Rachael, as always, is ahead of me and adds a mile to the ride before doubling back to our meeting point for lunch - just enough to nudge her total for the day up to that magic 42 number.

Weather conditions are fair, maybe five degrees warmer than yesterday. Maybe the biggest surprise of the ride is Cañada del Oro, the creek/dry wash that defines Oro Valley. Looking at it today, it’s obvious that yesterday it too must have been a rushing creek but there’s no running water today. Here and gone in under 48 hours - amazing.

Also nice is that I saw my first roadrunner of the year - but not the first one for the team, because Rachael and Janice saw one yesterday when they were off ahead of me. In fact I saw two today, which is pretty good! But not as good as Rachael, who set a new single day roadrunner sighting record for the team and saw four.

#16: Sharp-shinned Hawk. Or at least I think it’s this and not a Cooper’s Hawk, which I just got a great look at yesterday so it’s fresh in my mind. The two birds are very similar, but the Cooper’s is maybe about a third again larger.

So impressive! The creek must have overflowed its banks here yesterday, and already the clean-up crew is out clearing the bike path.

Amazing that the water has disappeared so quickly.

This is impressive too, and another reason we love coming down here. This one way couplet on the bike path is new since last winter. Before this there was only the single path on the left, which made a very tight fit with two way traffic. I imagine the recumbents and trikers are much happier on this part of the Loop now.

Heading home. It’s sunny and warm now but we’ll lose it to the clouds almost immediately and it will be chilly by the time we’re back home.

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All About Birds is such a great resource for American birds (elsewhere, eBird is the worldwide birding bible). I consult it again before adding the roadrunner to the list to confirm its correct name, and am reminded that ours is the Greater Roadrunner (so of course there’s also a Lesser Roadrunner, in southern Mexico and Central America). And I see something surprising I hadn’t noticed before: the roadrunners are members of the Cuckoo (Cuculidae) family. There are about 150 species in the family, mostly tree-dwelling Cuckoos and Anis; but there are these two ground-based birds. An interesting evolutionary divergence.

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We eat in tonight. I have the rest of my New Year’s lasagna, and Rachael has the leftovers she brought home from Bacio. Afterwards we drive east to The Loft, Tucson’s independent film theater, to see the Banshees of Inisherin. We get about half-way there when Rachael realizes she doesn’t have her glasses - an exasperating and perplexing discovery, because she’s sure she pocketed them before we left home. They must be in the car, so we pull off to do a thorough search but don’t find them. There’s no sense going to a film she can’t see so we scrap the plan and drive home to watch the next episode of the Korean Netflix series we’ve been watching, Extraordinary Attorney Woo.

We expect to find the glasses when we get home but amazingly enough we can’t. We look in futility in every reasonable and unreasonable place we can think of. Makes no sense - we stepped out the door, got in the Raven, drove to the theater, came home. The only other possibilities are that they were in the car all along or that she dropped them outside somewhere before getting in the car. I take the phone and its weak flashlight outside and conduct the best search I can manage in the dark, but there’s no success there either. Fortunately she has a backup pair, but it’s completely confounding.

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Ride stats today: 42 miles, 900’; for the tour: 605 miles, 22,800’

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2023 Bird List

15. Greater roadrunner

16. Sharp-shinned hawk

Today's ride: 42 miles (68 km)
Total: 605 miles (974 km)

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Marilyn MudgeThe Extraordinary Attorney Woo is extraordinary!
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1 year ago

Rachael AndersonTo Marilyn MudgeIt sure is!
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1 year ago