The Slow-Cooked Sentence

It is a patient flock that stands along the edge of the dirt road and waits — for the motorcycle to pass, for the dust to settle, for the silence to return — before they renew their search for the Townsend’s Solitaire. They are patient in their walk, which is slow and quiet.  They are patient in their knowledge, which is peculiar and deep, and includes information about the white-headed woodpecker’s tongue, which wraps around the inside of its skull like a helmet. They are patient in their smugness, as they respond to a novice’s request to identify the black bird with red wings that just flew by. “It is a red-winged blackbird,” comes the answer. Now they shift their weight and settle in to wait some more, sorting out the sounds — the wind through the trees, the conversation from a nearby camp, the trills and cheeps of other birds — before finding it again, a singular, high-pitched call. Right there. Did you hear it? Yes? A bird flies past and all heads turn to follow it, identify it: “Only a robin,” one birder said. Somebody stirs the dust with a boot, two begin a conversation about last night’s owl walk, but most continue to scan the sky as the sound grows louder and faster, zeroing in on the group like a missile. Suddenly a bird skims past and lands in a nearby bush. In unison, binoculars are raised and breaths are held. I squint and find the thin gray bird with its long tail and sharp black eye. “This is the second time I’ve seen Townsend’s Solitaire,” one birder whispered. I look at the group gazing at this nondescript bird and decide they are much more interesting to observe.