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Bird Watching in the Desert

By Michael Wolcott

"Where else can you go to see a ceramic owl come to life?"

Wind scrapes across the grey-green flats from the west, flinging a fistful of gray birds through the air. Lightning flares in the bruised afternoon sky over by the Arizona-New Mexico line. Purple rags of cloud stream out ahead of the storm, headed my way.

A chill strikes the desert. Thunder claps. I take cover under the overhung cut bank of a deep wash. Mesquite roots claw at the air where the bank has collapsed. I crouch with my back against the earth, staring at the storm.

Here we are again - alone, in a dry place. Season after season I fill a backpack and walk, grazing the thin pasture of the desert. I never know what I'm looking for til I find it. This morning it was a pale blue trailer out on the flats a mile west of U.S. Highway 70, not far from where I sit. Abandoned trailers always seduce me.

So I marched through prickly pear, cholla and crucifixion thorn for a better look: a rancher's old line shack with the usual broken windows, dull chrome trim and faded siding. The windmill was rusting, the galvanized steel tank full of tumbleweed, rat turds and bullet holes.

I walked to the trailer door and peered through the empty window frame: a few glued-together kitchen chairs, a doorless refrigerator, broken dishes on the floor. On top of the fridge, a ceramic barn owl - flat face, eyes like saucers.

I became possessed by the idea of taking the owl with me. The door was locked, so I reached through the small window frame for the inside knob.

When I did, the bird turned away, its head swiveling like the child actress' in The Exorcist. The flash of terror in my cells was fleeting, but total. I yanked my hand out the window. The owl flapped to another room. I stepped away, feeling more alive than I had in days, and bowed.

Such moments hide in the desert, waiting to happen.

Other days, other birds: In the low Sonoran desert, a black-chinned hummingbird sits a walnut-sized nest in a tangle of paloverde. The thing glares at me from two feet away, daring me to move nearer. In Grand Canyon, two ravens efficiently tear apart my backpack, opening bags of food, flinging powdered drink mixes, piercing plastic water bottles with beaks like knives. At sundown in the Mojave, near the apex of a slender, crumbling ridge, 53 vultures rise silently on six-foot wings, drifting past the alcove I've chosen for a campsite. No one else is watching.

Almost everything that occurs in the desert is ignored. And truly, not much goes on out here. But what does happen sizzles with meaning. The flick of a bird's wing is a poem; water seeping from sandstone, an entire language.

Human artifacts speak, too. Listen.

Last April, a few miles north of the Mexican border, I found a tiny blue daypack bleaching in the sun. Inside were a pair of cheap denims (women's size 4), one lavender acrylic blouse, two pairs of panties (one pink, one blue), a brush and comb, a motel bar of soap. In a plastic change purse were 62 cents and a mass card bearing an image of the Virgin de Guadalupe. There were no personal identification papers. No maps. No field guide to the birds.

Before zipping the pack shut, I refolded the clothes carefully. I sat down and stared at the pack, and considered setting up camp until the owner came back. I wanted to ask her some questions about the desert.

Doves coo in the washes, fighter jets scream overhead. Is there any reason to go elsewhere?

Like everyone, I love the cool mountains, snow-fed rivers and the color green. But I belong to the dry places, and savor their offerings: the secretive birds, the hallucinogens of desert light and weather, the broken poetry found in the leavings of my kind.

Where else can you go to see a ceramic owl come to life?

The sky is weeping now, fat droplets pocking the sand. Rocks glisten. The air blossoms with scent - the drab and hostile plants are celebrating. After 10 minutes, the sun returns.

A few anonymous birds flutter through the branches of a catclaw, sending liquid notes through the suddenly fresh desert air. The sound triggers a shudder of pleasure deep in my chest. I make a silent vow to learn the names of more birds. I often plan to apply myself to this task, but never do.

Michael Wolcott is a Flagstaff writer, wilderness ranger and former gifted child. He has the c.v. you would expect of a nature mystic with poetical leanings and an old Toyota truck.