Learning the Birds; Texas Prarie River

Born and raised in Canadian, Texas, Ruth Rogers Ericsson lived for more than 20 years in Boston, Massachusetts. Upon her return to Texas in 1999, she moved to a ranch house 15 cattle guards from town and discovered an abiding fascination for the world of birds. Her fresh approach has appealed both for those immersed in birds and those who are new to the subject. Ruth takes her readers on many a surprising journey all in the name of learning the birds. Learning the birds began as a newspaper column in the Canadian record where it continues to appear every other week. Learning the birds is now a regional programming feature on High Plains Public Radio, the Public Radio's service and NPR affiliate for the four state High Plains region. The five-minute module airs twice weekly. For broadcast times and topics, listeners can log on to hppr.org forward slash features. North Texas Panhandle listeners can tune in to High Plains Public Radio at 89.5 on the FM dial.

This is called Early Days. Not very long ago, I moved to a ranch in the Texas Panhandle and began learning the birds. I hadn't planned to study birds, but I found myself in a place just boiling over with wildlife and so much of wildlife turns out to be birds. I was a city girl for a lot of years and everything about country life is new. Learning birds helps me better comprehend my new surroundings, and it is, of course, a lot of fun. This beautiful Panhandle ranch that I don't own, but am lucky enough to occupy, drapes itself across a portion of the Canadian River Valley and contains, within its boundaries, rolling prairie, ample wetlands, four ponds and a tree-lined creek. As you might expect, the birds are everywhere apparent. Even from inside the house, I see them on the white pole fence that surrounds the yard, or in the mini trees that grace this proud old homestead. I am two miles from my nearest neighbor, 15 cattle guards from town. It is the perfect setting for a student of the birds.

I've discovered that most of learning is simply paying attention. The rest is doing the homework. Several years into the journey, I don't claim to be an expert only a willing student in a fortunate circumstance. This place seems blessed with an abundance of birds in an abundance of habitats. It would be foolish to turn away from such an opportunity. And while it's only my opinion, I do believe that learning birds is not only good for the brain, but good for the soul as well. What's been on my mind lately, though, is the contrast between those early days when I first began, and now, this old house, despite its many charms, was uninhabited for 25 years. That makes me the first human to live here in a long time. Lately, I've begun to realize what an opportunity I was given, and how I wasted it. I felt the need to establish myself when I first arrived, and was always staking claim to territory. Maybe it would keep the snakes at bay.

At any rate, I came stomping onto the scene with the subtlety of a bull, claiming my little piece of the prairie. In the process, I probably chased away many birds who were used to this house in yard being empty, particularly the shy, elusive ones, the ones I've been chasing after ever since. If I could turn back time, I would treat this whole place like a giant bird blind. I would creep about inside this house, binoculars at the ready. I'd approach the local population with appropriate humility, and strive to never give offense. I'd take long stealthy walks along the creek, or camp out by the pond, waiting, watching, taking notes. If I could go back to the very beginning, I'd make up for having blundered into Eden unaware. Not that I'm complaining, in truth I still do all those things, the differences I know a little now about what I may have missed. This is called benediction.

Green elevators are a constant fascination of mine. I like the way they look and the fact that they're usually the tallest buildings you can find on the Great Plains. In medieval France, cathedrals were the tallest buildings anywhere, and people could navigate from place to place by a cathedral spire. You might almost say that green elevators are the cathedrals of the High Plains, since they so dominate our own horizons. It's quite likely there are folks today who navigate from one white tower to the next, as they travel across the land. What I've found thrilling lately, though, is the excuse to do business with the local grain cooperative, my own white tower, now that I purchase big bags of corn for the wild turkeys that hang around this place. They are wild, in name only I confess, they give me baleful looks when I'm not prompt and forthcoming with the corn. But I don't mind, wild turkeys make wonderful pets. They don't require much care. They pass through here on a regular basis anyway, following the creek, and they're fairly entertaining most of the time. In the early evening, there's a low collective gobble and the sound of crackling leaves beneath their feet. They come filing up from the creek in a long procession, coming ever faster toward the feeding ground, breaking ranks to surround the corn.

Big, gawky, iridescent birds, who almost always make me smile. We've been getting along even better since I figured out a way to keep them from taking dirt baths up against my fledgling honey suckle. It was the main point of contention between us. The honey suckle had the misfortune to be planted in some ancient ancestral dust ground, and the turkeys were fanatical about bathing in the same several spots. What ultimately worked was a simple thing, a circle of bricks around each plant, too sharp to cozy up against, so far so good. The honey suckle at any rate has thrived. I put my turkeys to work for a while, digging up a buried stone path. When one stepping stone was discovered midway between the house and the old bunkhouse, I wondered if the rest of the path might be there as well, waiting to be unearthed. Observing the damage the wild turkeys did to the part of the yard where I feed them, I decided to let them do the work of digging up the path.

I put the corn down where I thought the path was, and after about eight months, the turkeys had exposed a handsome strand of rough cut stepping stones. My favorite thing about wild turkeys, though, is the way they fly to roost, that they flew at all was a surprise to me, but as they became tamer, they began to fly to roost directly from the feeding ground into the cottonwoods that line the creek. The air becomes full of the sound of big wings beating, as one by one they launch themselves toward the treetops. I cannot claim to have been lucky enough to hear an angel fly that I know of, but a wild turkeys wings are the size one imagines an angel would have. So when I hear that sound like a muffled explosion, it seems to me an angel would sound exactly like that, bursting into flight. Sometimes that sound repeats again and again out here, a benediction at the edge of night.

This is called conversion. Today's bird is the flicker, but I'll get to that in a moment. After living many years in New England and suffering through her long dark winters, I've been reveling in the western sky and that quality of light that continually shines down upon this country. The sky here is half of everything at least, and we are almost always bathed in light. From the patio here, you can watch the last rays of the setting sun collect in the red clay banks of the Canadian river. The foreground steadily relinquishes the sunlight, but beyond in the distance is a molten pool of red clay lit up by the lowering sun.

The sky grows more purple and darkens entirely, but the last thing to fade is that lit up stretch of riverbank, which brings me to the subject of flickers, birds with a magical light of their own. How this spectacular bird got saddled with a modest name like Flickr, I will never know, but their members of the Woodpecker family, northern flickers found in abundance across the continent, are further divided into red and yellow shafted flickers, red for the western states and yellow for the east. These brownish, grayish birds are about a foot long when perched. In flight they show a white patch on the rump, but in flight they also show an inner fire. The reason is not the color of the feathers, but the color of the shafts instead. Imagine if you will a feather and drench the shaft in red or gold, spilling onto the delicate stuff that makes up a feather, and you begin to see how the color of a flicker spreads from the inside out.

You can tell the males by their handlebar moustaches, yellow shafteds have black moustaches, red shafteds have red ones. It is said that interbreeding sometimes produces a moustache with one side red and the other black. This is the bird I'm waiting to see. My first sighting of a flicker, a red shafted one, turned me into a bird watcher all at once. I heard the birds from inside the house before I saw them and followed their cries to the top of an old locust tree. The first stroke of my conversion occurred when I lifted my binoculars. There was a world of difference between those nondescript birds in the distance and the exquisite creatures I saw through the lens. Their breasts were a color between lilac and gold. And upon each was a smattering of dark oval spots like a pattern on a Japanese kimono.

Each bird had a gray face with a red moustache that was long and handsome, a dark badge under his throat and a sleek brown narrow head. I could see red in their wings and tails. I opened the door and stepped outside when the second and final stroke of conversion occurred. I startled the birds and one flew off, but the other left the tree and flew in my direction, circling around me slowly, only a few feet away. He seemed bound and determined to show himself off. The sight of him so close, lit from below by a setting sun, made it look as though an inner light poured out of him, trailing down his wings and tail in a stream of burnt sienna. When he flew away, he left behind a student of the birds, one determined to appreciate the light within as well as the light without. This is Bird Words.

A large part of learning the birds is the attempt to gain fluency in a new language, bird words, I call them. Memorable words like melanistic, pylegated, acypoter, and axelar. None, my spell checker recognizes. These fine words permeate the bird books, meticulously staking out descriptive territory. There's intoxicating rhythm in the hyphenated phrases. White-breasted brown-crested ladder-backed, dusky-capped, sulfur-bellied, scissor-tailed. The list of these is long. Birders are people for whom subtle differences are carefully noted, and it's important to get the lingo right.

Colors are precise, with shades of tawny, bay, cinnamon, ivory, chestnut, and buff. I'm still figuring out the difference between ruddy and roughas, sooty and slady, modeled and splotched. Birds are chunky, dumpy, stubby, or stocky, richly spangled or semi-palmated, chisel-billed, or zebra-backed. Owls can be flammulated or fruginous. Other birds are gregarious, colonial, or cosmopolitan. Body parts are carefully articulated. There are upper parts, under parts, and outer parts, primaries, and secondaries, mandible scapulars, and speculum. Also rumps, flanks, cheeks, napes, throats, chins, and vents. Birds are found wearing things. They wear medallions, masks, hoods, necklaces, bibs, and crowns. Also moustaches, sideburns, whiskers, eye rings, and spectacles.

They sport eartuffs, eye stripes, wing patches, air-sex, tail spots, and throat collars. There is bird slang, although it's buried in the literature. Humming birds are hummers. Impidanx fly catchers are impids, and loggerhead strikes are butcher birds. Proper names can be as colorful as the slang is. Consider the magnificent frigate bird, the elegant trogon, or the solitary sandpiper. Names affect our perception of a bird despite ourselves. I'm still hoping to see a blue-footed booby, and a chuck-wills widow. But I'm not so keen on the lesser scalp, the sooty turn, or the parasitic yeager. Careful attention is paid to a bird's migratory status. There are residents, visitors, breeders, migrants, and vagrants. Some birds are abundant. Others are casual, common, uncommon, accidental, or rare. There are avian activities and proclivities, such as nomadism, albinism, dimorphism, and kleptoparasitism.

Family life among birds includes monogamy, bigamy, and polygamy, as well as cooperative breeding, nest-swapping, egg-dumping, and brewed parasitism. When you enter the world of sound, an evocative language takes shape. This may be where bird lovers outdo themselves in descriptive ecstasy. Songs are described as bubbling, burbling, warbling, drawing. Nasal, sibilant, petulant, mournful, harsh, hollow, guttural, ghostly, plaintiffs, staccato, liquid, tremulous, rolling, emphatic, aesthetic, and vigorous. You could go on and on if you wanted to. Bird books are full of passionate description. Finding an excuse to talk this way is reason enough to study birds. This is called Gimpy. My first good look at the wild turkey I call Gimpy came on a splendid evening when the wind was still.

His name comes from his wounded left foot that's balled up and turned under. He appeared one day walking on his left knuckles, a painful lurching that I thought predicted an early death. Wild turkeys need a running start to fly to roost at night, or they become coyote bait. So the first time I saw Gimpy might have been the last. The winter grass in the long pasture beside the creek was an emerald carpet, backlit by a low slung sun, and for all the world like a great green stage. On to the stage hobbled Gimpy, entering far right and followed by his pal, another gobbler who is always at our hero's side. It was a scene from some grand opera with the friend singing baritone about his loyalty and Gimpy joining in and finishing the song, a lion-hearted tenor perhaps, singing of his own impending doom. Tis the season of passion anyway in turkey land, the males are everywhere displaying, spreading out their tails with a regal flap and swelling up into majestic beings.

They parade in front of the hens who have never seemed so feminine, mincing about uncertainly and acting coy. Gimpy and his friend began displaying too which I thought added to the tragedy and made the music swell. I watched until the sun went down as they made their way across the stage at Gimpy's halting pace, pausing to spread their tails and sing in the opera of my imagination. They played their parts with wrenching dignity and much foreshadowing of the sad events to come. Then, the next morning, I looked out at the feeding ground that's front and center, and there was Gimpy sitting on the ground. He sat a while more as I marveled at the side of him, then he rose up slowly to stand on his one good foot, seeming to stretch that leg and compensation for a long dark night.

It's been a week or more since that opening scene, and Gimpy's still around, it seems I underestimated him. Now I put out feed with him in mind. He's not here every night, but often I do see a shadowy hump of watchfulness that I know is him. To be sure, he's still crippled, and the odds against him are stacked, but he's eluded fate so far, quite a trick in his condition. Perhaps he'll fool us all and live to a ripe old age, the venerable basso limping onto stage and singing of his improbable success. Which is all well and good, but no fit conclusion for my opera. Plot details are fuzzy, but the final act will be something I saw one night when evening was about to fall. Gimpy and his pal were hanging around when the wind began to blow. It was gusting strong when Gimpy rose up on his one good foot and jumped straight into the air.

He must have caught an updraft, as with wings outspread, he seemed to levitate up into the topmost branches of the cottonwood trees. There was a great crescendo as he landed and a sigh of relief when he stayed put. How he would perch up there all night on one foot, I didn't know, nor how he'd land in the morning. But he had flown to roost, defying all the odds, while the spring wind blew and the music played a fever pitch. It was a stirring conclusion to the wild turkey opera that deserves the title, Gimpy Lives. Barnswallow's Saga Part One I did something this summer that would make a lot of people cringe.

Some people would consider it scandalous, not to mention unhygienic. I let the Barnswallow's build a nest in my porch. When I first got to this place in the country, I was told to tear down the several mudnests we found in the south porch. Somebody quoted an old saying to me something about Barnswallow's outside mean bedbugs within. I'd never heard this saying, and it seemed not only terrible but unlikely to me. However, I was new to the country and tended to heed advice that came my way. The nests were empty, so I took them down. I felt a little guilty, but I did take them down. Then this spring, the Barnswallow started building again, and well, between then and now, they've had a year to win me over. And they've done a really good job. We met, right after I did my dirty work on the porch, ripping down in a few minutes what took them days to construct. They were not shy about expressing their outrage, and dive bombed me every time I stepped outside.

I regretted us getting off on the wrong foot like that. I'd heard that Barnswallow's keep mosquitoes in check, and I hoped they would calm down and stay around. They did, and it wasn't long before there were bossy little know-it-alls perched around the place, giving lectures, or zooming around, showing off how well they can fly. Like all swallows, they're sleek and glossy, with feathers once considered so cunning on a hat that the birds were threatened with extinction. In fact, it was the plight of Barnswallow's that led in 1886 to the formation of the Autobahn Society. They are dark, steely blue above, cinnamon below with a dark throat, and long, forked tails, which they used to great advantage in the air. Considered among the best flyers in bird world, they make it look easy. They make a game of zooming around and among the trees and buildings and each other.

Surely these birds fly for the sheer joy of flying. Sometimes I see the whole group of them wheeling around in the highest vault of the evening sky. Sometimes they play Barnswallow pylon, a game with the object of piling as many Barnswallows as possible, onto the smallest possible space. They choose a certain branch, or wire, or window ledge, and begin a calculated agglomeration. Each bird hovers, uncertainly, before committing to a delicate landing next to the others. One by one, they all light to sit in intimate proximity. Their dense, chattering numbers build until at last the whole group is settled, and they sit a moment together, a crush of trembling Barnswallows. Barnswallow pylon seems in much the same spirit that moves people to crowd into a phone booth. There's no reason for it, really, but it's fun, and it makes a big impression.

The birds can't sit still very long, so the pile dissolves into a flutter of wings until the game begins again. So, having had the considerable pleasure of the company of Barnswallow's last summer, I've grown rather fond, and when I saw them starting on a new nest in the porch this spring, I began to check around to see what I'd be in for, if I let them stay. Barnswallow's saga Part 2 From the ceiling of the south porch, there hangs a spiral-shaped piece of metal. Part of an old auger, I'm told, it's been hanging there from a braided rope since I moved in, and I've never known what it was for. Now, as I contemplate the Barnswallow nest in progress, the purpose of that metal curl is clear.

It's a Barnswallow perch, hung there for the convenience of attentive parents, a perch for birds whose feet are fit only for perching. From this perch, they can keep close company with their partner on the nest, all sheltered under the porch roof. Understanding the perch put the official stamp of approval onto Project Barnswallow, at least for me. Country folk have long tolerated Barnswallow nests on porches and awnings. I'm not the only one the feisty little birds have charmed. Still, I did chase down that bedbug rumour just to be sure. I was told that while there might be mites of many sorts living in a nest, Barnswallow's are no more mighty than other birds, and regular handwashing is the simplest defense to bedbugs and so much else. A bird's nest does make a mess, of course, but a good spray with a water hose will put things back to spruce. A wise friend put it this way, you have to weigh your options to be able to sit outside on a summer's eve without mosquitoes makes it well worth hosing down the porch.

I hung a mirror opposite the nest that was visible from inside the front door so I could keep tabs on my Barnswallow family. About two weeks went by before the eggs hatched and the adults swung into high gear, no deadbeat parents here. Sometimes they'd hover like big hummingbirds in front of the nest, competing in their eagerness to feed. If one was on the nest, the other perched on the auger and the hatchlings were never left alone. At first, their big heads were so wobbly they could barely hold them up, but as the days went by a ring of little heads was visible, each head creased by a big white goofy smile. They looked like clowns who'd lost their wigs. It wasn't long before they turned into actual birds and began running out of room in the nest. Their reflections showed a pile of little bodies clinging to the center with their heads together and their tails all up in the air.

One day I looked out the window to see two babies perched on the auger. They had a panicked expression as they sat there contemplating their next move, and then, a little haltingly, they both flew off. When I stepped outside, the nest was empty and I never saw them go near it again. The whole family disappeared for a while, then one day they showed up on the white fence posing for their family portrait, mom and pop, and seven fat youngsters all perched in a row. Adults can be told from the youngsters by their tails only grown up tails are long and forked. This family was joined by others until the average number of barn swallows around at any time was close to 20, a big happy flock for sure and a wealth of players for barn swallow pylon. I look forward to watching all the baby barn swallows learn how to play. Barn swallows saga part three. As you may have heard, I'm violating the conditions of good housekeeping this summer in favor of the barn swallows.

I'm letting them keep a nest on my porch. Martha Stewart wouldn't like it, but watching the youngsters try out their wings is fair compensation for the mess. In the spring, six baby barn swallows hatched and graduated from the porch. I got a chance to practice what I preach and gave the place a good hosing down. Then a new pair of barn swallows started on another batch of eggs, pretty soon there were four eggs and two parents living again in the porch. Having had the pleasure earlier this summer of watching their babies grow up, I was looking forward to a second time around. I should give fair warning to those who think all this bird stuff is sweetness and light. You might want to stop listening right now. What I have to tell does not constitute a happy ending to project barn swallow, not unless you consider it in a larger light. The eggs, you see, began to disappear. About a week after they'd been laid, I noticed there were only three.

Holding a mirror above the nest, I could see no broken shells, no evidence at all. Just an empty space in the nest where the egg had been. The next day, there were only two eggs. The next day, one, and finally, there were none at all. What could have happened? The parents were understandably upset, but what was I to do? Telling them it wasn't my fault accomplished nothing. The location of the nest, on top of the porch light, was smack against a sheer smooth wall. What could get to it even a snake would have trouble finding purchase? It had to be something that flew in. As soon as I had that thought, I looked down on the ground around the porch and found my smoking gun. It was an owl feather, and beside it were two more. The mystery, alas, was solved. I knew these were owl feathers because there's a barn owl living in of all places, the barn. And I've seen feathers there that were a faded shade of buttery yellow streaked with white, the same faded yellow I held in my hand.

In place of a barn swallow brewed, I had only a barn owl feather. This must be where we contemplate the ring of life for solace. Things like these do happen in the world. The owl, after all, may have babies of her own to feed. And the barn swallows did rear, six little ones quite successfully on the porch this year, so it wasn't a total loss. The young barn swallows that remain still careen around this valley, with ease and exuberance, full masters of the air. It's a blessing to have them trying out their wings in earnest, on duty as mosquito patrol. And I'm grateful for the knowledge gained, at least, and for the means to solve a mystery. I wonder if the birds will use that nest again next year. I wonder if the owl will remember. Maybe I should give in to the ghostly voice of Martha Stewart, and go take the old nest down.

This is called flying cigars. Have you ever looked up into the sky and seen a flying cigar, or two, or three, or a dozen? You may have heard a peeping noise as they flew by that speeds up into a joyful twittering. They seem fond of the upper altitudes, and their wings flap strangely. First one, and then the other, which is a funny way for a cigar, or anything else, to fly. The whole thing looks quite wrong. The good news is that you haven't lost your mind, and neither have I, which I'll prove if you'll bear with me. The flying cigars are swifts, probably chimney swifts, and their hallucinatory appearance is just the beginning of all that is odd and interesting about them.

These alien birds are the size of a swallow, but with stiffer narrow wings in the shape of a crescent. It is said that the alternate wingbeats are an illusion, but it's a convincing one. Their movements seem erratic, jerky, even mechanical, but this too is an illusion because their flight is effortless, and their stamina is huge. Oh, and not to worry, they are as swift as their name, just try to catch sight of one in your binoculars to see how swift a chimney swift can be. Their true strangeness begins with their feet, I do believe, feet with all four toes pointing forward, feet even weaker than a swallow's feet. While the swallow can perch, but cannot walk, the swift cannot perch at all, but can only cling to a vertical surface, like a bat, but right side up. And then there are those tails. Short, almost non-existent tails that contribute mightily to these cigar illusion.

On the tips of these tails are stiff tines like a little fork. They use these tines as a third point of anchor for clinging to the sides of things. In days of your chimney swifts roosted in hollow trees, but as the forest shrank and humankind spread, they made an evolutionary leap into chimneys and became known as chimney swifts. Strangest of all is this, swifts do not rest, they must fly continuously once they leave the roost, they gather all their food on the wing, eating it aloft or bringing something back for the young. It's a restless lifestyle that chimney swift leads, a life led on the wing. Now, as nifty as this collection of facts may be, it took on new dimension when I realized there were chimney swifts roosting in my own chimney, something that caught me by surprise. I know it for a fact though, I watched a dozen fly down the chimney one evening, easy as you please.

So cigars with wings cling to the inside of my chimney walls a few feet from the living room. Do they listen to my phone conversations and the local weather? Do they look forward to the letterman top ten at night? Fortunately, they do disappear in winter or else I would have roasted them long ago. But summer is a long season here, so it follows that they bunk with me most of the time. I confess I feel a bit invaded now that I know they're here. Sometimes the things we learn when learning birds unsettle as well as illuminate. I'm still getting used to my unseen companions, otherworldly birds living right next door. It seems to prove the strangest things we encounter are sometimes the closest to home. The cuckoo's cry. Words worth as you probably know was a pretty good poet, and I believe that he described the cuckoo best of all.

Shall I call the bird or but a wandering voice? The poet nails the cuckoo handily with those words, for if you've heard that cry, you've probably asked yourself that question. Is it a bird or a disembodied voice? The yellow-billed cuckoo's call is a sound like no other, a guttural chucking, like something between an insect and a squirrel. The cry begins rapid and shallow, then grows in intensity as it slows down and becomes more vocal. It's a sound that makes the listener feel as though some dire warning has been issued. And the voice is all there is or seems to be, for the shy and stealthy bird is rarely seen. Cuckoo's don't fly into a tree, they sweep up into the branches and disappear. Once they've landed, they tend to stay put. So if you miss their entrance, only their wandering voice will give them away.

In flight, the yellow-billed cuckoo is a rusty colored bird about the size of a robin but longer and thinner and clear white underneath. If you're lucky enough to catch one in your sights, look for a curved yellow bill and a remarkable black and white polka dotted tail. June 21st is cuckoo warning day. The day the cuckoo's cry is said to predict a rainy summer. In these great plains, rain is not something dreaded but something desired. So when there are cuckoo's calling in the yard on June 21st, it bodes well. Should the legend turn out to be true? It makes sense then that the cuckoo is also known as the rain crow, though with its snowy breast and clear white throat it is anything but black like a crow. Cuckoo's come in two forms in our country, yellow-billed and black-billed, with the yellow-billed common in the plains. There was a time when these birds were in decline.

They were thought to be especially vulnerable to DDT. Since use of that pesticide has been restricted, the birds have returned and you can see them skulking about the edges of shade, trees and pastures once again. It follows that cuckoo's must be extremely sensitive birds, more attuned perhaps to changes in our environment than we are, which may give a whole new meaning to cuckoo warning day. Perhaps the real warning would be silence in place of the cuckoo's cry, a sign that something in the world is out of balance. The cuckoo of the cuckoo clock is another bird altogether. The European cuckoo differs in size, appearance and behavior from our American bird. It is more hawk-like and aggressive, sings an actual song, and is known for parasitic egg laying in other bird's nests, much like the brown-headed cow bird.

American cuckoo's, while admittedly less musical, are more upright in their habits, building their own nests and tending to their young themselves. Their spectral ways and mysterious comings and goings are the hallmark of the American cuckoo. Look smart and you may see one, heed that cuckoo warning if you don't. When birds drop in. When you live in the country, people drop in. Birds drop in too. Just the other day I found a bob-white trapped in my garage. It was in a panic of confusion regarding a glass window and was hurling itself against the glass trying to get out. As luck would have it, I knew what to do. I grabbed an empty feed sack and held it up against the glass

so I could envelop the bird with a sack and grab hold of it. When I let it go, it flew off easily enough, so I'm guessing it was fine. Sometimes birds drop in the house. One day a Phoebe flew into the living room after being briefly blinded by a light on the porch. The next thing I knew it was Phoebe on the lampshade, Phoebe on the mantle. For a long while it was Phoebe on the fridge. A frantic Phoebe, indeed, who eluded every one of my clumsy attempts to shoe her near the door. If I'd known then about the feed sack trick, I could have used a towel and gathered her up. But I learned that trick too late. As it was, I was making no progress catching her with my bare hands, but the cat had become interested in the proceedings. The next time the Phoebe flew into reach, the cat made a move and was heading up the stairs with the bird in his mouth when I caught up with them and demanded that he give the bird up. Somewhat miraculously, the cat opened his mouth and gave me the bird,

which was unmarked and apparently unharmed. Its little heart was certainly beating very fast when I carried it to the door. When I put it down on the porch, it fluttered off into the gathering darkness. The lesson here I think is to be careful with lights your birds aren't used to and reach for a towel if a bird drops in. Sometimes they dropped from the sky. After a furious storm one night, I found a Merlin Hawk dead in the yard. I knew it for a Merlin from its small size and cryptic coloring of grayish tan and white. I felt lucky to get such a close look at the handsome little raptor, but I hated that we had to meet that way. One day I heard a sound like gunshot as though someone had fired at my house. Thinking this unlikely, I stepped outside and found a larger Hawk than the Merlin, one who had apparently just flown directly into my downstairs window.

The big bird was sprawled face down in the dirt taking rapid breaths. While I watched, it turned its head to look at me and there was a panicky look in its yellow eye. From head to tail there were 18 inches of stripey sandy brown and white. There was yellow around that hooked beak to match the eyes and feet. I think it was a prairie falcon. I could see a wound over one eye that looked recent, but no blood. It was likely he had quite a headache but was clearly alive. Perhaps he was only stunned. I went inside and put on gloves and a leather jacket. I didn't have a clue what to do, but whatever it was, I'd need protection. When I got back outside the bird was gone without a trace. There wasn't even a mark in the dirt to prove he'd ever been there. I was glad he'd gathered his wits and flown off, but devastated I hadn't stayed around to watch. It seems to prove that we'd better be on our toes when the birds drop in.

Out on a limb. Every morning lately I play a little game called Find the Nighthawks. I could call it Find the Bullbats, as they're commonly called around here. My game board is three-dimensional. A tracery of gnarled branches topped with green. It's where's Waldo with birds in the locust grove and it's a challenging game. The reason I'm playing is that I've discovered one common nighthawk who's very fond of a particular branch in a locust tree. I first saw her from the front porch and she was perched in the morning sun just plain as day, so I took a good long look. She didn't seem to mind as I got closer and closer until I was right underneath her and she looked calmly down at me with one big sleepy eye.

I've been keeping tabs on her since then and she occupies the same branch day after day from morning until night. My goal is to spot her pals who must be hiding in plain sight right in front of me, like Waldo, but finding them is turning out to be quite a trick. More often we see nighthawks in the air, high in the sky at twilight, flying about in groups of three or four, showing off their long angled wings with that white stripe across the middle. Their cry is a buzzy beeping more like an insect than a bird. In flight they're slender and streamlined, but at rest they look rather lumpy and squat. In fact, the difference between how they look in the air and how they look on a branch is remarkable as are many things about them. A nighthawk perches lengthwise along a tree limb, not across it. I've seen my bird facing out from the tree one day and facing in the next,

but she is reliably longitudinal. This trait they share with their cousins, the Whipper Will and the Chuck Will's Widow. The reputation of the nighthawk has long been enmeshed in mystery and paradox, perhaps because they seem composed of contradictions. One contradiction is their camouflage, a modeled pattern so intricate, it adds up to little more than shadow. On a branch, a nighthawk can appear to be missing ahead. The lack of a discernible neck is one reason, those small pointy bills are another. These pose another paradox for the itty bitty bills disguise enormous gaping mouths with which the bird scoop up insects on the wing much like a whale scoops plankton. Perhaps the greatest contradiction is this. Nighthawks look much bigger in the air than on a branch.

Only nine inches in length when at rest, their wingspan is close to two feet. I kept looking at my bird on her branch and wondering how she could fold herself up into such a compact package. But I'll go out on a limb and say that I think I've figured it out. What seems to be the nighthawks shoulder is really an elbow. To see what I mean, put your left hand on your left shoulder and your right hand on your right shoulder, lift your elbows up and imagine them sliding backward toward your ears. Stretch your fingers out behind you and think them long enough to cross across your back. You are now a nighthawk at rest. To take flight, extend your hands outside ways. Your bent arms become the nighthawks angled wings. Now that we've solved that puzzle, I'll go back to my Waldo game. This CD was produced by High Plains Public Media in association with Texas Prairie Rivers.

A regional venture highlighting the dynamic natural resources of the Texas Panhandle. And encouraging appreciation of wildlife through nature tourism, education and conservation.