Mea Culpa

Editor’s note: On October 6th, Mark Rauzon reported on the SF Birds Yahoo group that he had sighted a Nashville Warbler in downtown San Francisco. But members who viewed his photo pointed out that it was in fact a much more rare Mourning Warbler. Here is Mark’s account of the sighting and what it ended up meaning to him.
By Mark Rauzon
I am sorry I misidentified the San Francisco Mourning Warbler when I found it on Tuesday October 6th. Sorry because a rara avis almost got away and some would miss a lifer and some would be denied a unique county tick. But in hindsight it was the denial of a precognition of death.
I was rushed that day as I had a meeting in Oakland City Hall with our councilmember to try to save the endangered Pallid Manzanita. Since I was at BART and had a few hours before teaching my next class, I jumped on a train and was quickly deposited on the other side of the Bay in the financial district. Two blocks later, I was in Ferry Park. This is a difficult place to bird psychically as homeless addicts, business professionals, and grounds maintenance crews all are in their places. Camera toting, bino laden, I took my place among them. I scanned the towering poplars with the usual sense of how hopeless it is to find a small bird here. But guided by faint chip notes, nearly drowned out by roaring trucks, buses, leaf blowers, sirens, and Ferry Building tower chimes, I saw a Yellow Warbler, a Yellow-rumped Warbler, and a Warbling Vireo, and considered the trip a success. Then I followed a hummingbird into the forest and atop the hill.
I immediately saw something run like a rat into the ground cover. I waited and watched a trembling leaf, then got a glimpse of a yellow bird with a complete eye ring, confirming it wasn’t a MacGillivray’s Warbler. I was sure to see it hopped, not walked, so I eliminated Connecticut Warbler. Because of my lack of familiarity with Mourning Warbler, I was conservative but my heart was pounding as I knew this was something special.

I dug into my backpack for my camera to document this but the battery was dead. I took a cell phone shot, cursed, took another shot through my binos, cursed, and looked closely at the bird as it disappeared into the agapanthus hugging the hilltop. I asked the genie in my phone where was the nearest camera store. Cursed, and then ran a half-mile to Union Square to buy a new battery to document. I had to wait 20 minutes to get a charge then ran back down Market Street through the lunch hour crowd.
My free time was running out, I had to get to work but first had to re-find and photograph the bird. I saw it scurry, then fly up and — oh no — away?
No, just deep into the bush.
Luckily it perched up for a minute while bird, camera, and mind all worked together. I was hoping some other birders would come by, and finally one did, but he was rushed to get back to work and never saw the bird, just the pix and said it looked like Nash. So I went with that misidentification in my haste to post it before the end of the day. (It was my wedding anniversary and I was going out to dinner and could not focus on ID matters.)

A few San Francisco birders looked at my post and saw it looked wrong for a Nashville Warbler. The rest is history. But for me things were unresolved.
Sure, I got a “lifer,” and my photo on Flickr got thousands of hits. But something was awry in the fabric of my life. A few days later, at home, the phone rang with terrible, tragic news: My dear niece who was like a sister to me had suddenly passed away. Two days after my encounter with the Mourning Warbler, I was now in mourning.
It occurred to me I was subconsciously trying to put off death, to not call it by its true name. I had delayed it as long as I could, but mourning came skulking, up from the ground, and perched, suddenly claiming one of us.
My niece named Ava was gone, flown away forever. And so I am sorry. Mea culpa for rara avis.