By Rachel Hudson
I messaged my fiancé late one night as I sat in bed, misery incarnate, tissues shoved up both nostrils, gasping ineffectively for oxygen with my mouth wide open and drier than the desert outside my window. Certain I was nearing my death, I asked him to tell me that he loved me and needed me, for I desperately desired the strength to carry on. He did so, and I resolved to not die in my sad pile of snotty tissues that night in a remote cabin in Arizona….
While Scotland had been so similar to home it was almost as though I’d never left, Arizona was an entirely different beast. My sweet, amazing aunt had generously planned out a full birding expedition to all the most legendary spots in Southern Arizona for the two of us, and I was thrilled to experience everything for the first time. I loved the desert, and I had always wanted to see the famous deserts of Arizona, as well as the birds that called it home. Upon arrival, we had a few hours to kill before sundown at our first hotel, so we hit up a nearby eBird Hotspot and I was immediately flooded with incredible Life Birds: Bell’s Vireos, Gambel’s Quail, Abert’s Towhees, a Vermilion Flycatcher… it was astonishing! What was most astonishing to me here, however, was what I was hearing… for the first time in my life, I was completely overwhelmed by the sounds of things that I could not even identify to a general family group. Was that some sort of goldfinch or some sort of vireo? Can sparrows sound like that, or should I be looking for a towhee? What options for warblers do I have here, anyway? The confusion was never-ending, and I quickly adopted the glassy-eyed “I-have-no-idea-what-that-is-or-what-I’m-doing-here-but-it’s-all-pretty-neat” expression of a girl who was way out of her element.
The pride I had felt in Scotland from my ability to identify birds I’d never seen before based on their sounds was fast diminishing. Here, I could sometimes pick up something familiar; Yellow Warblers sang from many treetops that first night and Song Sparrows did the same from vegetation around the ponds’ edges. However, many calls were foreign to me, and I used Merlin extensively to at least get me in the correct ballpark.
The following day, we drove near the summit of Mount Lemmon, over 9,000 feet above sea level. One thing I quickly learned in Arizona was that much of the area is incredibly high in elevation. I was accustomed to living close to sea level throughout my life in Texas and Washington. But here, all our hotels and cabins were in areas between 2,500 and 5,000 feet above sea level. We often traveled to Sky Islands, massive mountain peaks that sharply rise up from the desert and create their own unique ecosystems. With all these rapid elevation changes, my health quickly started to deteriorate. As we drove from 2,500 feet up to 9,000 feet and back down again on Mount Lemmon, I became very lightheaded, but also had a terrible headache, dizziness, drowsiness, overall fatigue, and what almost felt like a fever but without the high temp; all while just sitting in the passenger seat in the car. My state worsened as we descended, and I finally found an excellent excuse to pull over; my Lifer Gila Woodpecker flew across the road at an intersection, and I weakly watched as it flew straight into a saguaro in an empty church parking lot. I had always dreamed of seeing a Gila Woodpecker in a saguaro! We pulled over into the parking lot, and I carefully stepped out of the car, taking a few minutes to acclimate to not moving.
After a while, I was able to photograph the Gila Woodpecker and its mate, and I saw several other surprisingly great birds darting around the densely flowered trees and shrubs: a Verdin, a Hooded Oriole, and more Gambel’s Quail. I gradually felt recovered enough to continue, and we then went to the Saguaro National Park, where absolutely everything was in bloom—breathtaking to behold. A more sweeping and majestic landscape I had never seen before, and there were many birds still active in the blazing afternoon sun. A Pyrrhuloxia snacked on cactus flowers, Rufous-winged Sparrows sang from the shrubs, and Lucy’s Warblers flitted about everywhere. However, in looking at the vast seas of flowers, I began to wonder if they would affect me at all… I’d always had pollen allergies, and there was probably an awful lot of it there.
I soon had my answer; I was indeed suffering from allergies starting that evening, and they gradually got worse as the week went on. The wretched combination of severe allergies and altitude sickness made it so that, by the end of the week, I could not talk or move at all without gasping for breath. Whatever faucet controlled my sinuses were thrown wide open, and I soon risked heavy nosebleeds with every sneeze or sniffle. Still, I wanted to try my best to enjoy this region; my body may have wanted to pack it in, but my heart yearned to see more.
I got to observe the vast majority of the “Arizona Specials”—the Elegant Trogons (which had taken three exhausting attempts over two days, hiking up a steep trail at 5,000 feet), Elf Owls, Dusky-capped and Buff-breasted Flycatchers, more Red-faced Warblers than I could comprehend (21 individuals along one small road on Mount Lemmon alone), and 10 species of fantastic hummingbirds, to name a few. One such hummingbird, the Blue-throated Mountain-gem, was shown to us by a skilled guide; with the hummer’s massive size, shocking cobalt throat, and endearing cheeps, it quickly became my favorite bird of the trip. There were many more species I saw for the first time while there that I probably should have seen ages ago, such as Green-tailed Towhees, Burrowing Owls, and Cactus Wrens. As the trip went on and I forced myself to ignore my body’s protests, I couldn’t help but become fully enamored with the beauty of the region. Tall rock formations begged to be photographed, flowers of every color painted the earth, building-sized saguaros took my breath away, and all the wildlife was far richer and more diverse than I ever could have imagined. The deserts were never boring, always alive. I saw my first Gray Fox, my first Coati, and scores of other adorable reptiles and small mammals. It was nothing at all like the Pacific Northwest, and though I found myself deeply in love with everything, my afflictions reminded me of the home comforts I missed. Cold, freshly filtered water was something I hadn’t had in days. My own bed, with a box of lotion-infused tissues beside it, sounded like paradise. And the birds back home… they were things that I knew, things that I hadn’t realized were a comfort to me until now.
I first pondered this truth in Madera Canyon, where the Townsend’s Warbler that lives in my backyard all winter was a local celebrity in one of the greatest birding areas in the world, with many photographers thrilled by his striking poses. I, too, delighted in taking pictures of the stunning little black-and-yellow bird… but then, I stepped back and just watched. Here I was, over 1,200 miles from home, in a new world where I was surrounded by the beautiful and the unfamiliar… and flitting before me was a single tiny flash of memories of home. The sensation of sitting in my warm bedroom during a winter storm was carried to me on feathers of onyx and gold, in the middle of a desert at the end of April. I began to understand why the birds of Scotland were so enchanting and exciting to me… they reminded me of the comforts of home. They weren’t boring at all! They made me happy in a cozy sort of way. In Arizona, the birds also reminded me of the comforts of home, but indirectly; they showed me that the world beyond the familiar was vast, and that there was so much more I had to learn and discover. It was humbling, and I began to really appreciate the little, “ordinary” things from back in Washington.
The “ordinary” Anna’s Hummingbirds at feeders had many guests stumped in this land of the flashy and magnificent, but I was able to hoarsely call out their ID with confidence, something I hadn’t had a great deal of since Scotland. As much as I longed for an “ordinary” Turkey Vulture to morph into a Common Black Hawk, it was not to be… yet still, I watched them and smiled, as they kettled over a group of 30 or so birders, all of whom were instead focused on Hepatic Tanagers and Rivoli’s Hummingbirds. As the week of my most challenging and rewarding adventure to date drew to a close, I spent my final morning simply standing and watching as droves of Yellow Warblers, Wilson’s Warblers, Yellow-rumped Warblers, and Lazuli Buntings took happy baths in a water fountain in our host’s backyard. All such comforting, familiar species from back home….
The last leg of my Grandest Adventure soon came, and my time birding in Arizona was over. My aunt and I packed our bags and left our beautiful cabin in Portal to catch a few planes to Texas, where I had grown up, and where the rest of my family was waiting. In the week that followed, the familiar would take on a new meaning to me, and with it, a new gravity….
To be concluded next month…
Photo credit: All photos taken by Rachel Hudson. Birds, left to right by row: Gila Woodpecker, Pyrrhuloxia, Elegant Trogon, Red-faced Warbler, Elf Owl, Abert’s Towhee, Townsend’s Warbler, Blue-throated Mountain-gem, and Gambel’s Quail. Scenery: Saguaro National Park.
