Roadside Rest

Roadside Rest Resurrecting a Long-Lost Life ListMaybe

Sixteensomething and honor students in accelerated sci-ence, Judith Villela and Hilary Brainard enlivened a weekend last summer at our mountain getaway in Payson.

At almost the precise center of Arizona, Payson lies north by northeast of Phoenix some 93 miles. Cool and moist, Payson tempts flatlanders with some of the nearest ponderosa pines. At an elevation of 5,000 feet, this once-tiny, remote cattle ranch-ing center today serves as most-ly a freeway portal to the 3-million-acre Tonto National Forest. The Tonto is visited more than all the other 155 public reserves managed by the Forest Service.

A goodly number of this wood's visitors are of that often odd, sometimes intense, and invariably fascinating breed of humans bewitched by birds.

"For bird-watchers," I told the young ladies over a breakfast of hotcakes and homegrown peach-es, "a trip to the Tonto is to die and go to heaven."

No exaggeration. "A majority of Arizona's 510 species of resi-dents and regular migrants can be seen here on the Tonto," I rat-tled on. "Given that some 890 species live and breed in North America, north of Mexico, I think it's remarkable that about half of them occur in one forest."

These were city girls. Their blank if polite stares reminded me of an essay the Christian Science Monitor once published under the title "Bird Watching for the Ornithologically Inept." Author Downs Matthews explained: "There are those among us for whom nature is simplicity itself.

"For this clear-thinking flock, the biological world, with its baffling complexities, its count-less genera, its incredible variety, holds no puzzles "My neighbor, Mrs. Schwartz was one such person. As a nature expert, she specialized in birds. With stunning originality, she reduced all of ornitho-logical taxonomy to just two categories.

"In Mrs. Schwartz's condensed field guide, there were robin redbreasts and Jenny wrens. All species of birds fit conveniently into one class or another, and Mrs. Schwartz was never in doubt as to which was which."

Breakfast done, I played my Base. Each of the young wo-men gleefully un-wrapped Robbins' classic guide, Birds of North Ameri-ca, and a lovely bound supplement, The Birder's Life List and Diary, published by the Cornell Lab of Orni-thology.

"One of my saddest regrets is that I didn't keep a life list," I told our young guests. "I could have begun with hundreds of species of warblers and vireos and other song, shore, and water birds of the East when I was an outdoor boy. In my time, I've lived on the California Coast and traveled around the Pacific Rim and into four continents. Green pigeons in Africa I saw. White storks in Russia. Antbirds in Brazil. Racket-tailed drongos in Southeast Asia. Arctic terns in Alaska. Iwi hon-eycreepers in Hawaii.

"What a list I'd have today of all the sightings and dates and field notes! Maybe a thousand. But I didn't list them... and now I'm growing old, and it's too late."

We struck a deal. Before the weekend was over, they were to observe, identify, and enter at least five species into their diaries. Afterward, if they found the hobby boring, they could abandon it without guilt.

While still seated, they dutifully began with the mourning dove and purple finch at our feeder. Then as we eased out the driveway, the Blazer startled a flock of apple-raiding Scott's orioles, which in turn scrambled our rufous hummingbird, the Spitfire fighter plane of our bird world. A trio of red-tailed hawks hunted the nearby hill. A raft of elderly and wing-weary Canada geese cruised our community lake.

Seemingly it comes as a surprise to outlanders and urban dwellers that Arizona teems with birdlife. How can birds make a living in a realm (so goes the stereotype) of nothing but gritty sand and cacti? In truth, Arizona harbors legendary bird havens: the sky-island Chiricahua Mountains, the riparian oasis of Sonoita Creek, the hardwood retreat of Madera Canyon, just an hour from Tucson's airport. Tourist bird-watchers annually pour tens of millions of dollars into the southern Arizona economy.

Within the state's numerous climate zones, the Department of Game and Fish is assembling data for a comprehensive breeding-bird atlas. When done, it will document: sandhill cranes and ringbilled gulls in land-locked uplands, three species of quail, the hibernating poor-will, all three of the tanagers breeding in the West, more kinds (14) of hummers than any other state, aerobatic white-breasted nuthatches and the much-prized elegant trogon, the comical roadrunner and the national emblem bald eagle, the largest of wrens (the cactus wren, our state bird) and the elf owl that cozies up to our state flower, that of the saguaro cactus. As the earthen byways un-rolled beneath our wheels, four pairs of eyes engaged in in-creased competition. Atop an oak: Western flycatcher. Along the Verde River's East Fork: a pair of mountain bluebirds. Up and down the charred bole of a decaying pine: acorn wood-pecker.

At home at the end of a perfect and prolific day of wheeling, skulking, sitting, peering, and researching, we surprised two plump feathered thieves cheerily polishing off the last of my peaches.

"Look. Are they robin redbreasts or Jenny wrens?" I teased.

"The proper name is American robin," Judith corrected me.

"And the index shows no Jenny wren," added Hilary. Maybe my life list is not lost after all. Maybe, maybe, it's just beginning.M