I have long thought that the greatest allure of birding is the randomness of birds.  There is an old saying that sooner or later every species will show up in every location.  We know, of course, that species are closely bound to habitat and migratory patterns, but they are also at the mercy of weather and man, increasingly so as the latter’s numbers increase.

Though there is one Arizona record for Bumblebee Hummingbird, it might take eons for one to show up at the feeders in our yard.  Yet who would have predicted the Ringed Kingfisher at Roper Lake State Park or the two separate Pacific Slope Flycatchers seen seven weeks apart outside our computer room window, the very first time we have seen that species here in our fourteen years at this location?  These are random sightings that in other contexts would be known as “Acts of God” because their occurrences are inexplicable.

Everyone loves surprises, those of the happy kind, and birders must be the world’s most inveterate seekers of happy surprises, the best ones being the right bird in the wrong place or the wrong bird in the right place.  And lifers of course.  Every birder remembers their lifers, certainly the location and probably the time of day, what they were wearing, and whom they were with.  Every time an avid birder walks out their door with their binoculars, they’re expecting the unexpected.  They’re expecting to win the bird lottery, and last month someone at Roper Lake did.

I’ve never won the bird lottery, but I’ve seen a lot of lifers.  My two closest brushes with inexplicable randomness involved sparrows, Cassin’s and Five-striped.  One spring mine was the first Cassin’s Sparrow report of the calendar year when I heard one singing in the Madera grasslands, and one summer I found Five-stripeds bathing in lower Madera Canyon.  The former was several weeks early and the latter were several miles north of where they were expected.  Why me Lord?  Or better yet, why not me more often?  The Lord knows I try hard, and ever since those two incidents in back to back years, I’ve birded Madera more than any other place in southern Arizona hoping lightning will strike again.  It hasn’t.

And owls of course.  Besides Great Horned and Burrowing.  Night birds are special because randomness increases with darkness.  Most folks have more pressing things to do after dark, like sleeping, but birders are more intrepid than average folks.  I’m guessing dedicated night birders are sleepier and happier than those that eschew the random things that might happen to a person after dark.  I’ve had Barn Owls and Barred Owls outside my tent scare the bejeesus out of me in the middle of the night as I slept, but on other occasions when I’ve gone out looking for them I haven’t found them.  Owls define randomness.

My next lifer could be years away, but I’m just living for our next yard bird.  I can still see the first Pac Slope Flycatcher, just sitting there in the Sweet Memory bush, hyper alert like flycatchers all, the big, bold, complete eyering on the triangular, cresty head, the short primary extension, the unmarked lower mandible.  It didn’t speak to me, but I’m going with Pacific Slope because Cordillerans migrate through the mountains.  It could have been out in the Texas Olive or the Palo Brea and I’d never have seen it, and how fitting for it to be in the Sweet Memory.  Is that more random than a second one showing up seven weeks later in the same bush?  Yeah, they’re sweet memories, and I’m headed out the door right now with my binoculars.  Remember, every species, every location.