“Yeah. I get it.” I still wasn’t happy. “I’m going to do a sweep and plug up any holes to try to keep the little guys from getting in in the first place.”
“Good plan,” Risa said. I found at least seven nooks where any small woodland friend might enter the Nature Center. We weren’t exactly a world-class eco-establishment. But I stuffed steel wool every place I could until I ran out.
Fauna’s annual conservation issue would be coming out soon. I should write them a letter about owl-friendly rodent poison. I bet a lot of people didn’t even know that was a thing, even among Fauna readers. I could make Gran …
Oh. I guess I couldn’t make Gran do anything. Except be trapped in a coma. I’d made her do that.
No. Laurel. Stop. Guilt was not positive. Guilt was not productive. Roll it into the tight little knot in your chest and push it down until it rests like a pebble in the shoe. Annoying, nagging, but motivating enough to get you to a place you can rest.
“You okay?” Risa asked from behind me.
I realized that I’d been close to hyperventilating. Sometimes the “Gran is gone and it’s your fault” feeling fought back harder.
“Yeah. Sorry,” I muttered.
Her face softened. “I did the deed. Laced some of the spots near the chew sites. Hopefully you’ll just keep them out.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“As Brian Michael Warbley said in Fauna issue two hundred and three, ‘We are stewards of all creatures, not masters. But sometimes stewards must also keep their own houses in order.’ I think that’s fitting, don’t you think?”
“I—I…” I stammered. “I do, actually.”
“Warbley knows all,” she said. Risa quoted Warbley to me.
“Okay, time to make twig wreaths,” she said, and walked away. All I could do was stare.
Since Risa had the wreathers, I straightened the back issues of the Center’s Fauna collection. Issue 203 did in fact have Risa’s Warbley quote in an article about jays and crows. Girl knew her Fauna, too. That was almost … alluring.
I quickly shoved the feeling down to where I kept the guilt, even though that space stayed stuffed nearly full. But I couldn’t worry about that now, because I had trails to monitor.
To quote a later article in Fauna issue 203, “No matter where the sun is in the sky, there is still time to make it a great day.”
FIELD JOURNAL ENTRY
MAY 15
I raised my camera to my eye. You could try to capture a scene using the digital screen, but sometimes framing a shot required a more old-school technique. Skin on cool die-cast metal made me feel the shot as more participant, less observer.
“There you are,” I said to the pristine red-winged blackbird who sat with his mate on Grandma Maple. I snapped and snapped their picture. Male red-winged blackbirds were just that—ebony bodies with wings of fire and gold. The females had chocolate bodies with taupe stripes. Warbley had said on more than one occasion, “Why don’t we call it a male brown stripy bird instead?”
Indeed, Warbley, you sexy birder feminist, you.
I wandered around, shooting our various avian residents, occasionally picking up a stray wrapper or beer bottle. I’d planned to go show the pictures to Gran, even if she couldn’t see them. I’d decided that maybe the light from my tiny camera screen could activate her brain. Allegedly computers and phones could mess up your sleep cycle. Who was to say a convergence of natural art and unnatural light might not do the same for coma patients I’d caused to nearly die?
My stash of Gran angst gurgled from its pit in the depths of my body. As was becoming my habit, I slammed a lid back on it.
I slung my camera over my shoulder. My best bird lenses stretched far from the camera body and got to be a bit of a pain to carry around. I used my garbage claw to grab a moldy baseball hat, a few cigarette butts, and chip bags. My second bag held water bottles to give to Sophie for art at the senior center.
When I had nearly reached the end of the woodland trail, bags and lenses caused my appendages to droop from the weight. We cleaned these trails regularly. How could people possibly lose this much shit on the daily? Though, some of it probably got there overnight. I suspected the Birdie Bros came back after hours for adventure night bird seeking, but had never gotten any solid proof. I ambled over to a tree to lean against as I redistributed the trash.
“Stupid bottled water,” I mumbled. These would be upcycled, but for every plastic flower made, there were probably hundreds of bottles making their way to garbage oceans in the Pacific. I heard voices coming up the path behind me. I hid on the other side of the tree, technically off path (sorry, Jerry), in no mood to talk to people.
“This is really the most viable tract here,” said a voice.
“The elevation makes it less likely to flood, unlike the wetlands,” said another.
I peeked around the spruce, curious.
“The elevation brings the most birds here,” said a third person. “But they won’t put up much of a fuss.” The group laughed and kept walking.
I waited a few minutes until their voices faded to silence. What was that about? They were right about the elevation. This end of the woods stood on a hill, which attracted the most migrating birds. The place crawled with bird tourists in warbler season. It’d pick up again for the birds’ trips south.
Weird.
I made a mental note to mention this to Jerry another time, since I had about a minute to stash my bottles before my next Birdscout Eagle Eye activity. I decided we’d make male brown stripy bird masks.
It seemed fitting for the day.
FIELD JOURNAL ENTRY
MAY 18
“Gran,” I said. “Listen.” I played her my most recent recording of our bird.
Twitch. Twitch. Leg tremor.
I beamed. “Yes! Great!” My stomach twanged with every one of Gran’s involuntary purposeful movements. The usual pricks had faded into a background ache that I soothed with deep breaths of goodwill.
“I am up to about seven hundred pictures in a month,” I told her.
Twitch.
“All of them suck. I’m sorry, Gran. I’m not really doing right by the family legacy.
No movement from Gran, but my stomach churned.
“It’s barely summer. I have months,” I told her. “Like Warbley said, ‘Seasons matter, but what is time, anyway?’”
Monitors beeped in reply.
I sighed. “I’m going back to my co-op. I’m converting little birders in your name. The catbirds are particularly popular with the unschoolers. Like you say, they are among the chattiest. They make friends easily.”
Gran’s foot moved a fraction of an inch.
“See you tomorrow,” I said. I kissed her goodbye. Outside on the bike ride to the Nature Center, I noted that the dogwoods had finally decided to bloom. Pink fluttered down onto the pale pavement below, the whir of my tires stirring the petals. As rubber hit concrete, tiny ballet slippers danced and twirled around me. Spring’s version of snow burst with vibrant life, in contrast to the world in which I’d let Gran become trapped. Sterile. Empty. Blank.
I hoisted my bike onto the Nature Center rack. I directed my breath out toward the path to the hospital. Feel the flowers, I thought at Gran. They are blooming for you. I’ll bring some live color for your room, nurses’ orders be damned.
A few rogue petals in Gran’s hand, at least. Her roommate suffered from allergies. I didn’t want to cause her to suffer as well. But a few soft, gentle reminders of her wood and pond couldn’t hurt.
Even if gathering them for her poked at the most raw places inside of me.
FIELD JOURNAL ENTRY
MAY 20
On Monday morning, Sophie and I sat in her backyard staring at a rock slab. She lived on the opposite side of the “mountain” as everyone called it (it was more like a hill). Since the leaves were still filling in (Pennsylvania winter had hung on like a mofo this year), you could still see the edge of Grandview Cemetery fr
om her porch. Stone angels peeked from between white birch trees, ghosts on top of ghosts. Morning glinted from budding ivory branches, casting a glow year-round, until spring fully birthed green again. All species loved to perch on those jutting twigs and chiseled faces. I always wondered if the graves felt the indignity of being pooped on regularly. Or maybe it just served as a reminder that no matter what, life goes on.
“You can tell a lot about a bird by its wings,” I said, clicking shots as I waited for Sophie to take out the trash.
“Oh?” Sophie said.
“Yeah. Long wings indicate bodies built to endure long migrations. Shorter wings aren’t bad or anything, though. You couldn’t expect a goshawk to chase prey through tight squeezes with the wingspan of a wandering albatross, you know?”
Sophie smiled. “No. I guess not.”
“They have this metal sculpture at the Nature Center where you can trace the movement of wings. It’s an incredible amount of effort. They don’t just flap. It’s like this crazy, curvy motion.” I inelegantly tried to imitate it for her. “Risa brought it in a couple of months ago. It had been abandoned by the Science Museum.”
She stopped midstride to stare at me.
“Okay, so I suck as a bird. I’ll never fly,” I said.
“You can’t get mad that you make a terrible bird. You are a great human. It’d be unfair to the rest of us if you could be both. And funny how the person bringing this sculpture is also the same who disconnected the complicated timer thing to your setup last year, no? Knocked down the camera? So you didn’t shoot the diamond-backed parakeet getting it on or whatever.”
“It was a ruby-throated hummingbird breeding. You were close.” I rolled my eyes. “It was a long shot. And someone screwed it up, that’s for sure. And I don’t know who else would do it. But she’s being nice-ish now.”
“I will have to readjust my feelings of hate on your behalf,” she said.
“Eh. Maybe later,” I said.
“Fair enough.”
“Come on. We gotta go or we are going to be late. I need to see the Monday birders.”
“Wouldn’t want to miss them,” said Sophie.
I got to co-op and found Risa standing with the Monday birderwalkers huddled in a clump on the boardwalk, binoculars pondward. I tentatively moved toward them, gazing out in the direction they faced. Sitting on half-submerged logs were two black birds, regal necks stretched, wings unfurled to the rising glow in the east. I lifted my binoculars to my eyes to get a better look. The cormorants were back.
“Why do they do that, Mom?” asked Karen (who I thought was only a Tuesday regular).
“To dry their wings, honey. Their bodies don’t wick away moisture, so they have to stand in the sun.”
“You have to wonder why nature would make a bird with less oil on their feathers. Shedding water is a dead useful adaptation. These guys have to take time out of their day so they don’t freeze or something. Better to be a duck,” said Louise.
“Cormorants were once thought to be the messengers of the devil,” I said.
Thanks to Gran for that knowledge, though Warbley had included it in his latest deluxe field guild.
“No!” said Karen and her mom together.
“Some people said the devil himself took the form of a cormorant to spy on Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.”
“I thought a snake did that,” said Richard.
“Maybe they worked together,” I said.
“Cool!” said Karen.
“What are you doing here?” I said to Karen and her mom. A kid named Owen was there, too. “I thought you were my Tuesday birders.” I threw an accusing look at Risa.
“Risa emailed all of us to help find your bird. We—” started Karen’s mom, but she was interrupted by a hollow echo from the woods. The birders turned in unison toward the trees.
“I think—” I started.
“Shhhh,” all of them breathed as one.
We stood, listening. Two tones, then the song.
“Mockingbird,” whispered Richard.
“What is it mocking? That’s something else,” said Louise.
From the far edge of the pond, something answered with the same strange call. We pivoted on the wood toward the other bird, binoculars up. I caught feathers rising.
“Merde,” Richard said. Gran said that sometimes. I’m pretty sure it was a bad word in another language.
“Did anyone get a look at it?”
“It was too fast.”
“Nope,” said Owen.
The first bird called again.
“To the woods, people,” said Richard.
We followed him on the well-worn path and on the overgrown side trails. My bird trilled and called and sang from the ground layer hedgerows and from a midstory feeder obscured by a fence and most often from the canopy layer just out of sight. That avian asshole knew how to avoid detection. It was as if he and his buddies were hanging out in a ninjutsu dojo somewhere among the highest branches.
“This is a new one,” said Louise. “It only took a day to get a picture of the Spix’s macaws in Brazil. You’d think this thing were hiding for its life.”
“To be fair, the guide told us where their nest was,” said Richard.
“True,” said Louise.
“Are Spix’s macaws really that blue in person?” said Karen.
“That they are! And let me tell you about the black stilt we saw…”
“On a nature preserve,” said Richard. “So it doesn’t count…”
“We are in a nature preserve right now, Rich,” said Louise. “If the bird shows up, it counts on the life list.”
Mystery bird cried quietly this time, signaling that it had tired of us all. The usual talk of sparrows resumed.
“Dang it,” I said.
“So close,” said Owen.
“Let’s go over by the gate. They sounded like they were last over there,” said Karen.
The gate revealed no birds, mystery or otherwise.
What it did have, though, were four men in business suits simultaneously typing into their phones. It was the oddest species I’d seen in a while there in the habitat.
“Do you think they are texting each other?” I said to Risa.
She studied them. “Birding is more of a flannel-and-denim situation, in my opinion. These guys are wearing Armani with wool overcoats. And is that one wearing a silk scarf? How is he not dying of heatstroke?”
“Does Armani make flannel?” I said.
“I’ll be sure to look that up for you when I get home,” she said.
The men separated and took pictures of the pond, the woods, the fields past the fence, and gate. One disappeared into the garden off the boardwalk entrance. The birders watched them curiously. Karen took out her binoculars and focused them on one man’s phone.
“I’m investigating his call, Mama! Get it?” She giggled.
“I’m glad you are instructing her in the way of bird puns,” I said to her mom.
“I believe they are in the curriculum for the Shunksville chapter of the Audubon Society,” she said.
“Hi there,” Richard said to one of the men when they passed us. “What brings you out today?”
“Hello! Oh, just out here doing some surveying work for the city.”
Richard eyed him. “Without equipment?” he said.
The man laughed. “This is an informal visit. We just want to get a sense of this place. It’s on the docket for development.”
Louise stood blinking at wool-coat guy, as if he’d just suggested she eat a cormorant. “What is on what docket, now?”
“Shunksville and Martintown. You know, the school district? It’s been in the news?”
We all stared at him.
He stared back. “They are building new schools. We’re here checking out the possible sites for the new campus. I’m sure there are notices up.”
There weren’t. Notices. I knew every inch of the pond and wood area. Risa frowned at me.
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“And they are putting it … what?” Louise asked again.
“This is the site for the new campus. A lower and upper elementary school, and a junior and senior high. Four buildings, and a separate recreation/performance space. It’ll be glorious.”
“What is?” said Karen’s mom.
“This place,” he said.
The man began to look uncomfortable. I didn’t know if it was the conversation or his ridiculous wool coat in the blazing sun.
“The fields here, part of the woods. The wetlands. The last of the houses in the zone will probably be sold to the city soon. So, hello, new school! You’ll probably get to go there, little lady,” the man said to Karen.
“I’m homeschooled,” she said.
“This is conservation land,” said Richard.
“Yes,” the man said slowly, looking Richard up and down, like he was just figuring out this plan was news to all of us. “Only because the family who owned it wanted it to be. They donated it to the city, but the will didn’t specify the use of the land in perpetuity. It’s been rezoned. The preserve is now just a suggestion.”
“Half a dozen species use this as a migratory stop,” said Owen. “Isn’t it famous for it?”
“There’s a festival every year,” said Risa.
The man looked at his phone, clearly over the conversation.
“Well, there’s a nice park downtown. I’m sure everyone can have it there until the new school is built.” He turned his back to us and practically ran to join his friend in the garden.
“Wow,” said Owen. “This is … bad?”
“It doesn’t seem like it can be true,” said Louise. “Wouldn’t we have heard about it?”
“There were town meetings about the new school. This site wasn’t mentioned,” said Karen’s mom.
The Confusion of Laurel Graham Page 6
