The hawk appears, unexpectedly, above the far horizon where palm trees dance and shimmer in the haze over the coastal waters.  On schedule it would seem, as it is mid-morning in mid-September, fall migration well under way, and there is an east wind blowing hard off the gulf.  On first glance the flight appears languid and exploratory, but as I raise the binoculars the bird catches a strong gust, flutters momentarily, rights itself, then rides the current, rising, searching for a thermal, drawing imperceptibly closer to my position on the tower.

Peregrine!?  Of course I assume Peregrine.  That is always my default distant raptor because, like many birders, I am a romantic.  The size is right, but as it comes into binocular view I see the wings are not, both their shape and the cadence of their beats wrong for a falcon.  This is a buteo on its migratory mission, not a falcon on an obligate hunt.  It banks and lifts a wing to the wind, and I see the dark borders.  Broad-winged, close-enough now that I lift the camera, excited for this opportunity to shoot a raptor I seldom see in the West and have never photographed very well.

The staircase to the top of the tower I am on spirals upward with thirty-nine steps.  I know this because I have counted them, and the hawk is on my level, on a similar upward spiral of its own, having found a thermal, a wider, looser one to be sure.  Why have I counted the stairs?  Wishing I had the raptor’s wings to counter my acrophobia, I reflect that Annie Dillard always counted the birds in flocks she encountered.  Birders are counters it seems, and I have climbed the tower because it was there in/on my way as I tracked a flock of Groove-billed Anis through the south Texas brush.

Pressing tightly against the railing for security, I force myself to look down, and I see the anis below me now, frenetically chasing the large grasshoppers ubiquitous across this drought stricken Texas terrain.  I count eight.  No, nine, then ten, some in the foliage, some on the ground.  Anis are beautiful in their own singular, ungainly way, and their gleaning strategy, branch to branch, then fly-hopping on the ground, seems to reflect the bad day the Creator was having when the idea for “ani” occurred to Her.  Like the Broad-winged, this is another species I seldom see and have rarely encountered with camera in hand.

I immediately realize looking through the viewfinder from this height induces a scary loss of proprioception but, arms planted firmly on the rail for stability, I shoot down on the flock of black scavengers as they chase, pounce, and pluck the winged insect hoard.  They seem perfectly evolved for this type of foraging, and they are mostly successful, but after a few shots from this strange perspective above the foliage, I am happy to carefully claw my way back down those narrow, twisting thirty-nine steps.

Twenty yards on the trail again, I round a bend and flush a largish bird, ani size but not as dark.  It lands at the top of a tangle of branches over the path, in the shade and backlit, not a good scenario for a successful bird photograph and, honestly, I’m not even sure what it is I’m seeing..  I walk slowly under it, making the photo possibilities even worse, but my line of sight is now free of some of the clutter of vegetation.  I reconize the bird’s sleek profile, the long tail, and the bright orange base of the decurved bill, and the camera comes up!  I have never been this close to a Yellow-billed Cuckoo, nor have I ever even seen one before in Texas.

In a recent column I spoke about how birds always draw us back, no matter how far we stray.  We have come to south Texas for the National Butterfly Center’s first ever moth festival, and I have lifer odonates on my mind as well, but the heat and drought have conspired to dampen both the numbers and the diversity of both those families.  I have taken few images on this trip about which I’m excited, but now the camera has captured three birds difficult to even find in Arizona.  I’m re-excited.  Is that even a word?  My love of the natural world has evolved far beyond its birdlife, but I’m still delighted when my path intersects with theirs.  My unnerving ascension of the tower staircase has delivered me to avian heaven.