This week I am doing something I haven’t done in over 2 years – and sort of forgot how to do – get up and go to work! But what a job – bird guide for the Southwest Wings Bird Festival. Yesterday I took my group to the San Pedro House. I put a good southeast Arizona specialty in the scope – Botteri’s Sparrow to the group’s delight and, simultaneously, added it to my Big Year (377). Then a funny thing happened. If my bosses find out about this I’ll probably get fired. I’m supposed to have 10 clients on these trips. A couple of times while walking the trail I took a census and came up with eleven. Since I really can’t count over ten any way I dismissed it as some kind of astronomic anomaly. Sure enough, at lunch time, a woman came up to me and said, in hushed tones,: “I think I’m in the wrong group!” She was! The right group was the Wednesday morning San Pedro House bird walk. Don’t worry, she didn’t eat our lunch. The day’s highlight was the Northern Beardless-Tyrannulet nest, with a Vermilion Flycatcher nest nearby.
Today I ran my group over to Patagonia with stops at the Nature Conservancy’s Patagonia-Sonoita Creek Preserve, Paton’s House, Patagonia Rest Stop, (Thick-billed Kingbird (378) ) and Patagonia Lake State Park. A full-blown 6:00 am to 4:00 pm day. I ran the group into the ground. “Slave driver”, “chops buster”, and worse slurs were slung by the end of the day.
Exhausted and abused, when I got back I had a talk with the Boss. “I want a 401K, health insurance, and profit sharing!”, I demanded. His answer? “Rob, this is a non-profit.” I’m just glad I didn’t have an owl prowl tonight. This is harder than it looks. Already I am looking forward to retirement again.
robsbigyear2019.com 