My good birding friend Tom loves to relate how he danced to the edge of divorce one summer when he dragged his beloved to a blazingly fermenting Mexican sewage treatment plant chasing a reported Elegant Tern.
He expresses the appropriate remorse for subjecting his bride to his uncontrolled mania, but when telling the story to other birders, he always pauses and delivers the money line we're all waiting to hear: "But I got the tern." And we all laugh knowingly.
What is it about birders and waste (or birds and waste for that matter)? It's simple, I guess. If the birds are there, that's where you go.
A landfill in southern New Hampshire kicked out three life gulls for me this past winter: glaucous, Iceland and lesser black-backed. This as we were scanning the frozen mess for New England's first-ever record of slaty-backed.
In the desert, wastewater treatment plants are sometimes the only water source for miles.
And Tucson boasts the improbably titled Sweetwater Wetlands, a wastewater reclamation facility that is a birder's paradise. My visits there have landed a slew of lifers: Curve-billed Thrasher, Harris' Hawk (resident), Bell's Vireo, Pyrrholoxia and, unbelievably, Least Grebe among others.
And today, I felt like I was handed the keys to the city. Following much patience, I finally received permission to bird the Sedona Wastewater Treatment Plant (SWTP). Such permission is almost never granted because of the facility managers' fears of airborne pathogens and/or stray bullets from an adjacent shooting range resulting in costly liability.
But I got in, thanks to my good buddy and displaced Kiwi Roger, and boy do I have enormous shoes to fill.
The previous keyholder was the Grande Dame of Northern Arizona birding, Virginia Gilmore, who has recently passed on. Virginia literally wrote the book on where to find birds in the Verde Valley, and was much loved in the area. One major regret I have is that I never got to go into the field with her.
At any rate, my permission is contingent on my continuing her work of regularly surveying the SWTP birdlife. Hey, someone's gotta do it.
Going in to take a quick initial look around, the wind shifted and I caught a big whiff. "Whew, Rog," I complained. "Naw man," said Rog. "Smells like habitat!"
This I couldn't dispute. There are three major inholdings at SWTP, one of which was dry today. A nice variety of waterfowl was radically upstaged by a stormcloud of hundreds of White-throated Swifts slashing over the water's surface.
Broad grassland, marshy areas, young cottonwoods and mature juniper promise scads of goodies as the seasons progress.
Expect much reporting from here, as frequent visits will help allay my grief over the loss of Peck's Lake.
Got a favorite landfill or wastewater plant? Tell us about it!
Posted by MadMonk at March 30, 2004 05:13 AMYou are not alone--our new wastewater treatment plant is called Brightwater!
Posted by: Cuzzin Ryan at March 31, 2004 11:16 PM