The Thrasher's Spot

Driving on the I10, with black storm clouds billowing above, made her wonder if this was such a good idea. She had a meet up arranged for 7 am at a gas station off the I10 with some birders. It was barely bright enough to see the exit. When she turned in to the parking lot, she realized with horror that she needed to use the bathroom. The sticky floor, the harsh fluorescent lights and the grime on the door handle left a queasy feeling; like the revulsion she felt that time she had walked at night barefoot where the cat had thrown up. She hurried outside where the birder cars mixed with the contractor trucks, their occupants loading up with plastic-skinned hotdogs, rubbery jerky, and buckets of soda from the gas station. If working outdoors in Arizona doesn’t kill you, the gas station food will grind you down. She walked over to the cars as a drizzle started to fall. Brief discussion and it was decided to push on to the Thrasher Spot. Birders are not easily deterred from a mission to hear the LeConte’s or Bendire’s Thrashers sing. It was nesting season and there was some bold speculation in the air that a migrating Sage Thrasher might also be seen. One by one the cars reversed out of the parking lot and cut away from the grimy I10. Desert and fields of alfalfa spread before them; the presence of irrigation ditches deciding what was horticulture and what remained desert. It wasn’t virgin desert. This close to Phoenix, most desert bore the traces of human wantonness. Used bullet casing, aluminum beer cans, food packaging, and random pieces of wood, plastic or metal, their usefulness and identity long since cast aside. A grey dust settled on most items, adding a layer of grim melancholy to the whole scene. The lead car suddenly veered into the right margin and without a word the birders hopped out, lashing their binoculars and hats on as they walked quickly over the ditch to the field. It was a field of scrubby cattle saltbush, preferred habitat of the Thrashers. People were eager to fan out. She had learned the unwritten rules of birding groups such as this; no loud talking, no arm waving, no bright colors and never, ever continue walking when others have stopped. The first ten minutes were conducted in silence as the group walked, stopped, and synchronously moved binoculars to eyes when a distant sound rose from the saltbush. After a half an hour of uneven ground, climbing up and down over the many dry washes that ramble through the desert, some grumblings about it being colder this year adding to doubts about whether the Sage Thrasher had returned. At that point, wanting to salvage something personal from the outing she whispered to her neighbor that she was going to head toward the small hill on the right. If he heard her, he made no sign, his attention rivetted by a shrub some fifty feet in the distance.  Not wanting to repeat herself she headed off. The Sage Thrashers were winter visitors to this part of the desert, passing through to more welcoming breeding locations further north. She did wonder if they would return. This field used to spread over thousands of acres south of the I10. Development had not so much crept as galloped across the desert, consuming and paving land fast, perhaps too fast for the Thrashers. What must it be like to leave a home that you no longer recognize? She realized, as she got closer to the wash between her and the hill, that it was steeper and more overgrown than she had planned on. She looked back over her shoulder to where the others were barely visible, doggedly pacing through the desert scrub. Just this wash, then the hill, which should have a nice view, and then back to the car. The edge of the wash was very sandy and, despite the grips on her boots, it collapsed as she tried to wedge down it. She ended in a heap at the bottom, near a pile of trash, unhurt and feeling a bit giggly. Glad the others were not there to see that. She felt like an amateur birder. She was brushing the sand off her jacket when she saw a small movement on the ground, under the big bursage plants that were filling the air with their aromatic, herby fragrance where she had disturbed them. She held her breath and tried to move her hands very slowly to her binoculars, which she now realized, were no longer around her neck, having come off in the fall. No camera either. She was torn between wanting to frantically search for both, as she could not afford to replace them, and wishing that, whatever was causing that scratchy movement under the bursage, would show itself. She knew from her reading that the Sage Thrasher, and its cousins Thrashers, Bendire’s and LeConte’s, liked to evade disturbance by running on the ground rather than risking flight. She waited, wanting to hear something that would confirm its identity. Straining her eyes and her ears she realized with a shock what she was looking at. The trash pile she had landed on was mostly a torn plastic bag containing what looked like recent clothing. No mistaking the little pink sleeves poking out of the bag and the sparkling headband with a unicorn on it. There were also a pair of small pink trainers and a torn copy book with drawings and words in Spanish. Over there, an uneaten apple and some plastic water bottles closer to where she had heard the sound. Her heart was beating now. Were there people, migrants perhaps, hiding in the wash? Many tried to cross the Sonoran Desert during winter, braving the cold winter nights. “Hello…Hola...? she faltered. Still the small scratching sounds in the bursage. Were they watching her? The back of her throat felt dry. She decided to abandon the Thrasher trip, and back out of the wash, searching for her camera and binoculars as she went. But shouldn’t she stay and try to help them, or at least the little girl? She had the twenty-dollar bill in her pocket that she had brought to have a latte on the way home, having imagined herself scrolling through her Thrasher pictures in the café. What had she been thinking, her and her elitist birding trip! What happened next is still difficult for her to comprehend, at least to reassemble it in the order that it must have happened in. She had her back to the wall of the wash, was down on her hands and knees parting the sand as she looked in vain for her lost equipment when she heard the roar of an engine tearing through the wash, toward her and the pile of trash. With a scream a bird flew out of the bursage, wings frantically beating trying to get purchase on the air. An off-road vehicle flew out of the bursage, and she saw the panicked look on the two faces as they threw the wheel left to miss her. The engine loudly protesting as they forced it up the crumbling side of the wash. A shower of rocks and sand landed on her head, and she heard the whooping and high fiving as they made their miraculous escape. Then the sound faded; no one was coming back to check on her. Shaking she crawled to the mangled bursage, hardly daring to look. There was no one there, just some bedding. She sat down shaking and crying.  She felt angry at what could have been and the callous lack of respect for life; hers and whom ever had lived in this wash. She wondered where the family was now and what might have led them to this spot in the desert, the Thrasher’s spot. That bird…. a migrant too, hounded by relentless pressure on its home by the vacuous, privileged off roaders, was nowhere to be seen. How could it ever survive here? It was crushing to think about its future. Heaving herself over the edge of the wash, she spotted her binoculars and camera firmly embedded in the sandy wash. The wreckage of both was comprehensive. She walked out of the desert back to her car.