Turning Point
by Mary Jo Ballator ©2004
On July 12, 2002, a Plain-capped Starthroat, a species of hummingbird from Mexico, made an appearance in my yard in the Huachuca Mountains of southeastern Arizona. The bird’s appearance marked a turning point in my life, although I was unaware of it at the time.
The bird had been banded several days earlier in Miller Canyon, a few miles away. It left there presumably because it did not enjoy being captured and handled. Banders are trained to handle birds without harming them, but certain birds are more sensitive to the procedure than others. Some birds allow themselves to be recaptured in the same location time after time. Others are seemingly traumatized, and leave, never to return. It seems this was the case with the Starthroat. It was never seen again at the banding site. Amazingly, it found my feeders and decided to stay.
Plain-capped Starthroats are not rare. They are resident in Mexico from northern Sinaloa southward. They do not often appear in the U.S., however. Sightings of Plain-capped Starthroats in the U.S. are numbered at only around twenty appearances of individual birds in the last thirty-five years. These records all have been in southeastern Arizona. The birds are generally thought to be in their first year, dispersing from their home territories after fledging.
We notified several local birding experts of our exceptional visitor right away, but word did not spread among the birding community until August. For the past several years we had opened our yard to the public during the Southwest Wings Birding Festival, held in this area in early August. That year, when word of the unusual bird finally got into the Rare Bird Alerts on the Internet, interest in seeing it grew exponentially. People from all over the U.S. started phoning, e mailing, or just showing up.
We decided to keep the yard open until we were scheduled to leave on vacation at the end of August. By that time, there had been an estimated 500 visitors to see the bird. Acting like the star it was, it graciously made regular visits to the same feeder. Throughout the day, it would appear approximately once every 45 minutes.
We hated to do it, but we were forced to close the yard to leave on vacation. Several birders who had not yet been able to make the trip had to be turned away. We left not knowing how much longer the bird would stay. Our wonderful house sitter, who kept the feeders cleaned and filled while we were away, reported that the bird stayed until September 3.
Life does not always go as one hopes. By the time we returned from the vacation, it was becoming painfully clear to both my husband and me that our marriage was faltering. Hope for resolution had faded. Soon afterward, we made the sad, difficult decision to divorce.
If I were to be able to keep the property, I would need to find a way to support myself. Birders had told me how much they liked being here. I hoped I could make a go of it by turning the guesthouse, built for family and friends, into a one-unit B&B, catering especially to birders. The first guests to the fledgling B&B came in April 2003, and at the same time, I opened the yard to visiting birders.
Visitors keep telling me how unusually “birdy” this place is. I still do not fully understand why, but in the variety of habitat here, at a mile in elevation, desert birds and mountain birds converge and feel at home. The bird species list for the property is currently at 144. The Plain-capped Starthroat’s appearance brought the number of hummingbird species to 15.
On June 19, 2003, I was so excited to see the Starthroat again. The original bander determined it to be the same bird as the year before. In the Starthroat species, the sexes look alike. We had to refer to the bird as “it”, until hummingbird expert Sheri Williamson of Southeastern Arizona Bird Observatory confirmed that the wear on the tail feathers was consistent with its having nested in Mexico earlier in the spring. Thus, the bird is most probably a female.
This time, she stayed until September 17, 2003. She adopted a different schedule from the previous year. She was older and wiser. Her appearances at the feeders were much less consistent. She could sometimes be seen hawking bugs, or feeding at the agave blooms. Sometimes her eager fans were frustrated when she did not appear at all for several hours. She seemed quite relaxed and casual, and it was clear that she was relying more on naturally occurring food than on the feeders. Despite her size, smaller birds could intimidate her if they challenged her before she was well settled on the feeder. Once she finally started drinking, however, she would generally stick tight to her perch. Her large size and long bill necessitated sitting very upright while feeding, in contrast to the smaller birds’ hunched-over posture. She presented a formidable appearance, even though she was never aggressive.
On days when her appearances were sporadic, I feared that something might have happened to her. One hot day, she did not appear at all. I was beside myself with worry. Later, we learned that she was visiting other feeders in Ash and Stump Canyons. But she always came back, eventually.
Many more people saw her than in the previous year, and business at the Bed & Breakfast also grew.
I’m waiting with great anticipation to see if she will come back in 2004. Hopefully, she views my yard as her regular summer vacation spot. You can be sure that I’ll be watching the feeders very carefully this June.
Her appearance helped me to turn my life in a new direction. I think of her as my talisman, and feel very attached to her. Her story is intertwined with mine. It is still being written. She should be back any day, now.
Copyright © 2004 Mary Jo Ballator. All rights reserved
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