White-winged Dove were cooing their summer notes, and Say’s Phoebe giving spring music on S-J’s Cascabel Pasture. This phoebe is common at Mason’s and pairs of them have been courting there for a while but haven’t been singing in this way, and at Mason’s the dove is neither to be seen nor heard yet. (Both these things will hold true right through to the end of the month …)
Two more Rough-winged Swallow over the Mason pastures in the late sun.
A single Rough-winged Swallow appeared, heart-gladdening though of course this does not a summer make; it’s worthy of remark at this early date but expected to be downright common soon enough. Then a single full-plumaged Vermillion Flycatcher from out of nowhere–both these the first of their species I’ve seen anywhere this year and now I’m rethinking whether summer isn’t indeed being “made” today.
Tumbleweed seedlings just sprouting, in masses on south slope of a berm in #2 (north) pasture.
A Poorwill in the headlights, flying up from The Lane and on ahead to land again. First of year I’d seen anywhere, and a couple weeks ahead of the bird’s usual reappearance, for this date might be considered rarer than rare, i.e., “casual.”
Flocks of about 40 Western Meadowlark moving about from pasture to pasture during the day, and often flushed as I walk about through the bermuda grass at dark when I’m emptying wheel line hoses of their day’s water to avoid the problem of frozen lines and sprinkler heads in the morning … I’d love to have the odd leisure moment to go through determining the bird is definitely this species (as opposed to Eastern Meadowlark), measure the length of an eyebrow stripe and so on; instead I can work from the descriptions of both these species’ movements in the Tucson Audubon book “Finding Birds in Southeast Arizona” and I call these meadowlarks Westerns. Then of course one comes on statements from other sources saying there are intermediate appearances between both of them, and even songs that are neither classically one nor the other. No hard “species” edges here–and so much for the precision of Life Lists?
Five Mallard floating among thin sheets of ice on the stockpond–one typical male in fine spring plumage and two females and among these three birds there were bills of yellow, orange, and orange with a black saddle. The other two Mallards were “Mexican,” one having a green bill and the other yellow. [..]