A New New Year's Day: East Fork Trail and the Rufus Sided Towhee

Birding has been a lot of my life without realizing it. It creeps around, stalking you. You start with a bird list here, add some more to it later, compile multiple lists and then you see that you have seen over 100 birds. It still isn't anything serious until when you actually sit down and think about it, the truth comes out and you admit to yourself in the gravest of tones, "Hello, my name is Stephen. I am a birder and I have 471 lifers."

I did not go out birding, like most of my confessions begin. It was a hike to bring in the new year, like I do every year. This time I am with my sister-in-law, Alma, hiking from Prison Camp Road to Sabino Canyon via Sycamore Reservoir and East Fork Trail. A solid 11 mile day round trip. Over the first saddle, the first bird of the year came into sight: the Rufous sided towhee. This bird is by no means a lifer, but at the same time, I haven't seen his friendly face for some time, possibly over 7 years. Instinctively I knew without referencing to National Geographic. The first bird of the year.

What made this more worth while was to share it with my hiking partner. Anytime I would venture out with fellow hikers and spot a bird, I try to share my enthusiasm by sharing my binoculars. Generally, my companions would try to spy the bird before it takes off and would concur the sighting with a "Yup, it's a bird." But this time it was different. Despite having its generic sparrow/bird traits, the rufous sided towhee is little more unique that just a bird. Being 8 1/2 inches long, it dwarfs most other sparrows. And rather than being the dirty brown that we try to distinguish between 99% of all the buntings and sparrows, this guy is mostly black with a reddish sienna belly and a little white here and there. Definitely a more striking bird than we normally associate with birds in his grouping. It stroke a chord in my non birding  companion. "Oh, I see it!" rather than the usual "It's a bird." I do not think I have created a convert in this one sighting, but the reaction was far above par for the course. Plus, I did not have that urge to hide my passion for seeing just a bird.

So, first bird of the year. That was kinda my thinking behind this whole blog, a year list. Right now, I have my lifers list, broken down by lifers in various regions of the world. Within this list, I throw in various birding trips I have taken with a list of birds I saw on those trips. These very well possibly repeat many of the lifers. But this is the first yearly list for me. I just woke this morning to let my dog out to discover a couple of doves on the phone lines. With many of the species I regularly encounter, they automatically get filed into the "Seen It" part in my brain without even looking at it. It's either a mourning or a white winged. Check and check. Now the game has changed. Which one is it? This list is making me rethink how I see the common birds everyday. No more assumptions. No more short encounters. I have to get reacquainted with so many strangers that I thought I knew.