Etiquette at a Twitch

I have always said that my least favorite part about birding are the birders. Most of my closest friends are birders, but the most infuriating behaviors, attitudes, and encounters I've ever experienced have usually involved birders. This trip certainly maintained this trend.

After spending an entire day planning out a route for a trip to Texas that Roger Clark and I had been contemplating for a month or so, my heart sank when I saw the report for a Red-flanked Bluetail (Tarsiger cyanurus) in Los Angeles, California. I have never been a fan of the traffic and I had really wanted to track down the Fork-tailed Flycatcher in Van Zandt County, Texas. Instead, Roger and I decided to leave Santa Fe at midnight on Wednesday, January 9th. We made our way westward, arriving in Kingman, AZ at first light. The interstates were wide open, and even L.A. traffic was flowing well, which enabled us to get to the UCLA William Andrews Clark Library after thirteen hours of travel. We made sure to play the requisite "L.A. Woman" as we made our way past downtown Los Angeles, arriving at the Bluetail spot around 11:40am.

At this point Roger and I realized the theme for this trip. I had expected a lot of people staking out this bird, and to be honest, it wasn't exactly as bad as I expected. However, that doesn't excuse the bad birder behavior on display at this site. For one thing, the hedge the bird was most frequently seen in was crawling with shuffling birders. Then, one birder demanded all who were present gathered together so they could play a tape. Apparently this had worked yesterday, but unsurprisingly (to me at least) the bird didn't respond to the tape. It isn't so much the act of playing the tape that irked me, it was the justification that, because birders had done that yesterday, it was ok to do it today. This is a slippery slope that could be used to justify just about anything. After the tape failed the crowd began to thin out, it was approaching one o'clock and people undoubtedly had to get back to work. Fortunately the lower number of birders (30 rather than 50) meant everyone could disperse a little more. I had been standing near the spot where the bird was most frequently seen as Roger began mentioning "Rule Number One" (never leave the stakeout for a rare bird that you know is around). Before he could even get the words out of his mouth I noticed some movement off to my right at the base of a different hedge. After glancing at it through my binoculars I instantly recognized it as the Bluetail. A handful of people also standing around me also managed to see the bird, though the bird disappeared within ten seconds. Of course, this prompted many of the birders present to proceed to walk around and beat this hedgerow, ensuring the bird wouldn't reappear in this spot any time soon. I don't know if it is ignorance, entitlement, or impatience that makes people think it is ok to walk right on top of where a bird had been seen. Why on earth would the bird show itself or come back to a shrub with someone standing three inches from it?

I believe this is a third California record and the ninth US/Canada record away from Alaska

Not a great photo, but about the best I could do (for whatever reason my camera was having a hard time focusing)

Red-flanked Bluetail (Tarsiger cyanurus)

UCLA-William Andrews Clark Library, Los Angeles County, CA

Jan. 9, 2019 

After about another hour and a half the bird put in a more prolonged appearance at a different portion of hedgerow allowing all who were present to see and photograph the bird for several minutes as it appeared to snatch insects near the base of the hedge, occasionally flicking its tail. It eventually flew off, but shortly after I began to hear its thin "Su-weeet!" call. After recording it I ran into several other birders and found out that some of what I had been hearing was someone playing a tape, making my recording useless as I didn't know which vocalizations were the bird and which a birder's phone. I was predictably angry, especially considering there was no reason to play the tape in the first place. Everyone had already seen the bird, but apparently that hadn't been good enough. My prodding for an explanation as to why they used the tape was met with sheepish grins and dismissive mumbling. Apparently oblivious to my frustration one of the perpetrators began asking me about how one might go about seeing the Rosy-Finches at Sandia Crest. I gave a curt reply and was rescued from the conversation by a security guard asking us to leave. Despite the fact that the library didn't technically close until 5pm (and it was only 3pm), exhaustion was beginning to set in (neither of us had gotten more than an hour or two of sleep before taking off at midnight) so we didn't argue and left the Library grounds.

Mitred Parakeet (Psittacara mitratus) 

UCLA- William Andrews Clark Library, Los Angeles County, CA

Jan. 9, 2019

Roger and I then began the hellacious slog through greater Los Angeles traffic eastward. I had noticed a White-throated Thrush (Turdus assimilis) had been discovered in Madera Canyon that afternoon and we figured we might as well swing by on our way back home. This meant heading westward on I-10 through the City of Angels with the hope we could get to the outskirts and get a room for the night. After nearly three hours we managed to travel about forty miles and finally exited a congested I-10 to hole up for the night in a motel.

Free of the crushing L.A. traffic, Roger and I made good time eastward. After a largely uneventful drive we made it to the Madera Canyon Picnic area around 2:00pm. We then naively joined the throng of people staking out the pyrocantha bush where the bird had been photographed that morning. We stayed until dark but the bird never returned. This certainly isn't much of a surprise given then number of birders clustered around the bush and the frequency of birders walking by the bush on the trail. It wasn't all bad though, as a male Elegant Trogon (Trogon elegans) appeared several times to eat berries, give a chortled call, and show off its formerly name-sake coppery tail.

Elegant Trogon (Trogon elegans) 

Madera Canyon Picnic Area, Pima County, AZ
Jan. 10, 2019

The next day at the pyrocantha White-throated Thrush stakeout couldn't be described as anything but a clusterfuck.

This was partly the fault of Roger and I as we decided to stakeout the pyrocantha once again in the hopes the bird would come in to eat. Of course the litany of clueless shufflers walking by the bush aimlessly (one woman passed it nine times, one couple five, and many others I didn't even bother to count) ensured the bird wouldn't show. Throw in the added aggravation of people parking illegally on the shoulder in front of no parking signs and the untold number of people not paying the access fee meant that by about 10:30am we were ready to leave lest we suffer an aneurism. One bright spot however, was seeing the Elegant Trogon again and running into a former New Mexico birder now living in Montana, Cole Wolf. After leaving the site we made it to Green Valley when I noticed a report on the listserv explaining the bird had been rediscovered along the stream further north from where we had been. We turned back, hoping it would cooperate, but after about two hours of searching we really had to start heading back to Santa Fe. It was more frustrating than anything as we had surmised early on that the bird wouldn't reappear at the pyrocantha given the activity. However, we weren't familiar enough with the trail system to know to search there.

Despite this bitter miss (made worse given the suffering we had to endure at the pyrocantha stakeout) I resolved to try again in a few weeks when I'll be back in Las Cruces for the Spring semester. A shorter drive (4 hours as opposed to 8 from Santa Fe), it will make for a straight-forward twitch, and hopefully after a while the madness will settle down for a much more pleasant experience. It was clear this is why there are few long-staying Aztec Thrush (Ridgwayia pinicola) records in easily accessible locations in AZ. While most birders may behave respectfully, it only takes a handful to chase a bird off and ruin it for everyone.

Elegant Trogon (Trogon elegans) 

Madera Canyon Picnic Area, Pima County, AZ

Jan. 11, 2019

All in all, I am certainly not a purist. Contrary to popular belief, playing a tape probably won't cause the bird to instantaneously expire. A Red-flanked Bluetail on the "wrong" side of the Pacific Ocean in the middle of winter certainly isn't in any danger of abandoning a nest because a tape was played. Most birds are much more robust than I think we typically give them credit for. In a world that is already so altered by climate change, feral cats, and glass buildings, there are much more relevant threats to birds than a tape recorder. That said, from a social perspective, playing a tape can be disrespectful to other birders. As is walking through the habitat that the bird is trying to use. Unfortunately, bad behavior is contagious. It only took one birder shuffling past the Pyrocantha at the Madera Canyon Picnic area before a wave of torpid birders were trundling by the shrub. Most weren't even looking for birds, but studying their feet. If you are bored from standing in one spot, walk up and down the road, don't ruin the chances of the bird appearing for those waiting patiently. In a similar vain, if the shoulder of the road has a no parking sign, don't park there, and just because the government is shut down, don't skimp on paying the access fee for Madera Canyon.