Nemesis Birds

 

Bahama Mockingbird (Mimus grundlachii).
Jetty Park,  Port Canaveral, Florida.  

The nemesis bird is an idea going around the birding community.  It is a bird that someone seeks but cannot find.  There are many definitions for a nemesis bird but for me it is one I have tried to find several times but has eluded me.  

Bahama Mockingbird.
Jetty Park, Port Canaveral, Florida. 

The Bahama Mockingbird (Mimus grundlachii) is, of course a native to the Bahamas and a few other spots in the northern West Indies.  Every few years a Bahama Mockingbird makes its way to Florida and birders flock to see it. If I happened to be in the area when one shows up, I would go looking too. In May 2018 I made three attempts to find the Bahama Mockingbird in Palm Beach County without success.  Then in April 2021 another was in Palm Beach County. Diane and I tried for this one too, and missed.  Finally, in April 2023 we tracked down the elusive Bahama Mockingbird in the campground of Jetty Park at Port Canaveral.  It was singing and fighting with the local Northern Mockingbirds (Mimus polyglottos) between the motor homes and giant cruise ships.  

I have not been as lucky with other nemesis birds.  We have made two trips to southeastern Arizona and saw many birds that are characteristic of that area like Elegant Trogons (Trogon elegans), Mexican Chickadees (Poecile sclateri), Rivoli’s Hummingbirds (Eugenes fulgens) and Elf Owls (Micrathene whitneyi).  But one bird has eluded us there, the Montezuma Quail (Cyrtonyx montezumae).  Montezuma Quail are found along the southern US border in the deserts of Arizona, New Mexico and Texas and down into Mexico.  Montezuma Quail are small, round, ground dwelling birds. Females are mottled brown, but the males have a dark brown belly, black and white sides and a boldly patterned face. On our trips to Arizona, we were constantly running into people who had just seen Montezuma Quail on the trail or crossing the road 10 minutes before we arrived.  The Montezuma Quail is still a nemesis.

Montezuma Quail (Cyrtonyx montezumae).
Painting by Louis Agassiz Fuertes. 1928.
 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cyrtonyx_montezumaeEBP20A.jpg

California Condors (Gymnogyps californianus) are critically endangered birds that were on the brink of extinction in the 1980s.   These giant vultures once fed on the carcasses of mastodons and mammoths and ranged across much of North America. Extinction of the giant mammals reduced the California Condor's population and range, but when Lewis and Clark reached the mouth of the Columbia River in 1805, they found   Condors living there.  The population of the California Condors continued to decline in the 20^th century due to agricultural pesticide use and lead poisoning until only 27 birds survived.  These last holdouts of the ice age were captured and used to begin a captive breeding program.  Young California Condors from the program were raised and released into the wild over the decades. Now a population of over 500 birds live in California, Arizona and Utah.     

California Condor (Gymnogyps californianus).
Painting by Fredrick Polydore Nodder, 1797.
https://commons.wikipedia.org/wiki/
File:The_Naturalist%27s_Miscellany_Vol_9_Pl_301_California_condor.jpg 

We have made two valiant attempts to see these free-flying California Condors.  In June 2013 we went to Big Sur in California where we scanned the cliffs and watched the skies, to no avail.  A park ranger told us he saw one driving to work that morning, but we struck out.  In August 2021 we sought the Condors in Northern Arizona, at Marble Canyon and the Vermillion Cliffs.  Again, no luck.  A Navajo lady working at the Marble Canyon Lodge told us she had not seen the Condors for a couple of weeks. She said we should come back in the breeding season.  Nemesis.    

Harris’s Sparrows (Zonotrichia querula) are neither critically endangered nor even rare.  We just don’t spend time where they live.  Harris’s Sparrows breed in the boreal forests of northern Canada and winter on the Great Plains.  In January 2023 a stray Harris’s Sparrow was hanging around Albuquerque, New Mexico.  Diane and I were in the area with a group of birders to experience the giant flocks of Snow Geese (Anser caerulescens) along the Rio Grande.  Our group made two visits to the location where the Harris’s Sparrow was seen, but we had no luck.  Then in the winter of 2024 a Harris’s Sparrow was reported in our own state.  It was on the campus of Warren Wilson College just east of Asheville, North Carolina. This unique college has a farm adjacent to the campus and students work the farm, raising row crops, sheep, cattle and pigs.  

The farm at Warren Wilson College.
Swannanoa, North Carolina. 

Pigs in their pen. 
Warren Wilson College.
Swannanoa, North Carolina. 

A curious pig.
Warren Wilson College.
Swannanoa, North Carolina.  

On my first trip for the Harris’s Sparrow in North Carolina, it was the familiar routine.  People had just seen the Harris’s Sparrow. "It was on the other side of the pond".  "In that patch of blackberries". "Down by the pig pen".  It was there, but I could not find it.  I was discouraged.  The sparrow was so close, I missed it in New Mexico and now in North Carolina.  It was a nemesis.  The Harris’s Sparrow was still being reported the next week so Diane and I went back.  We met a couple of birders from South Carolina who had been there a while but had not seen the sparrow.  After we had searched for a couple of hours Diane cried, “There it is”. And there it was, down in the pen, eating swine feed.  It was a large sparrow, with a brown head, pink beak, a white throat and breast and a black bib. It was an immature bird, over a thousand miles from where it should be. 

Harris's Sparrow (Zonotrichia querula) feeding in a pig pen.
Warren Wilson College.
Swannanoa, North Carolina. 

Harris's Sparrow.
Warren Wilson College.
Swannanoa, North Carolina. 

Diane went to tell the South Carolina birders she had found the sparrow.  While she was gone, our target flew into a tangle of briars.  The South Carolinians hustled over, and the four of us peered into the blackberry canes looking for the Harris’s Sparrow.  Then the sparrow flew up into a sapling.  It sat on the bare branches for several minutes, giving all a good look and a terrific photo op.  Harris’s Sparrow, nemesis no more.