Whenever I try to do two things at once I do neither well. Today I had to choose between chasing the Green Kingfisher on the San Pedro River or running my weekly bird survey at San Pedro House. “Why not do both?”, I logically thought. So that’s what I did. The San Pedro House Bird Survey is a replacement for my beloved Turkey Pond Bird Survey that I ran for about 12 years in Concord, NH. On that survey I counted 168 species compared to 147 so far for San Pedro House. Here’s a more interesting comparison: At Turkey Pond I saw 9 species of flycatchers and 25 warblers. At San Pedro House it’s 15 flycatchers and 12 warblers. Flycatchers like the west, warblers like the east.
Today’s survey was uneventful, in part because I sped it up in anticipation of searching for the rare and elusive Green Kingfisher, seen here just yesterday. I could almost smell it. I have to get this bird. I covered the river north of the route 90 bridge inch by inch and bird by bird. Nothing. I set up a vigil on the banks and waited for an hour. Not a feather. On the way back I ran into local birders Susan and Pete. “The SEABO group saw it earlier today right over there”, they informed me. They may well have repeated the old familiar: “You should have been here 5 minutes ago.” Missing the bird is one thing but missing it when others are getting it is like eating cold pizza with warm beer. It was after noon and I still needed breakfast so I reluctantly let go of the chase. My consolation prize was the on-again off-again Louisiana Waterthrush. The northern limit of its winter range is down in Sonora but in recent years it has become regular here on the San Pedro.
New for the year so I’ll take it. At Kingfisher Pond I added Belted Kingfisher and I also saw a Sharp-shinned Hawk. I forgot to add Brown Creeper 2 days ago so the list stands at 116 – only 384 to go. Tomorrow I have bird guide duty for our weekly bird walk at San Pedro House. I think I’ll head down there early and look for a kingfisher, before I do anything else.
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