It’s almost that time of year again to check out Mt. Ord in the far northeastern corner of Maricopa County for Arizona’s spring mountain warblers, but this isn’t a hotspot style column (jimburnsphotos.com/pages/6-20-08.html, spoiler alert--don’t go to this link before you finish this column) about how and where to bird on Ord. That’s because I can never think of Ord without remembering the laugh-out-loud incident that happened to me there several years ago. This, then, is the third in an every-now-and-then series of birding humor stories, and it is inarguably the funniest thing that has ever happened to me in a lifetime of birding.
As usual, I had taken my van for an April trip to Ord because it has higher clearance than our Honda hybrid. I had spent a successful morning there, mostly near the top walking the gated road up to the lookout and signal towers. I encountered no other birders, but I had found Painted Redstarts, Virginia’s, Grace’s, and Olive Warblers, an Hepatic Tanager, and a flyover Zone-tailed Hawk, a good morning indeed. Little did I know it was about to get immeasurably more interesting.
As I headed down the mountain, another van was backing slowly out of the 1688 jeep road where, on my way up much earlier, I had found Black-throated Gray Warblers nesting and seen Gray Vireo and Black-chinned Sparrow. I did not recognize the other van or its driver, and there was no way to tell if the man behind the wheel was a birder. Since I wasn’t sure if he saw me coming behind him down the main road, I accelerated slightly to get safely past and ahead of him, topped a small rise, and there, twenty yards in front of me, was a lady walking slowly right down the middle of the narrow road.
Momentary irritation turned quickly to interest when I saw her raise binoculars from around her neck. She was a birder, someone I had never seen before, and she was obviously birding the road. I immediately assumed the man in the other van was probably her husband, that they must have parked at the old corral near the beginning of 1688 and birded the 4x4 trace around the mountain on foot as I had done at sunrise, and now they were heading home but she had walked on ahead down the mountain while he maneuvered their vehicle back to the main road.
Not wanting to startle the lady, I slowed my van to a crawl, but she did not turn around or acknowledge me. When she drifted slowly to her right to the inside of the road, only one lane wide at this point, I was sure she must have sensed the vehicle was there, now only about ten yards behind her, but she still did not turn or look at me.
Still concerned she might turn into my path or step quickly in front of me to glass something down the mountainside to our left, I slowed almost to a stop, easing on the brake pedal. Binoculars still raised in her right hand, she pointed with her left as a Western Scrub-Jay flipped across the road and dropped downslope, then gestured quickly to her right as a Bewick’s Wren darted upslope through the thick chaparral.
Suddenly it dawned on me what was going on, and I had a premonition of what was about to happen next. Coming abreast of her, still with no indication she knew my front bumper was inches from her left hip, and fearing I might startle several years off her life if I honked or sped up, I slowed to a complete stop. My van’s passenger side door was now even with her left arm. And only inches away! She lowered her binoculars, but still gazing intently upslope to her right, she reached for the door latch with her left hand, opened it without looking, put her left foot up on the high step, and began climbing into my van. She still hadn’t looked! I did mention this lady was a total stranger, right?
It’s hard to guess which of us was most embarrassed, but safe to say it was she since I was grinning so broadly my face hurt the rest of the day. Sure, her husband was driving the van behind me. We hurriedly exchanged a few pleasantries, and I told her I totally admired her focus and intensity, essential qualities for any serious birders. To my knowledge I’ve never seen her again since that morning on the mountain, but I’m pretty sure her husband will never let her forget.
