State Bird

by Andrea Figueroa-Irizarry

         The one I point out is a pileated woodpecker, you’re quick to correct. There are many species of them, you say, this one being the largest and easiest to spot. It hooks its claws up a cypress tree, wings tucked behind itself, and headbangs into the bark with a fast rhythm. You pass the binoculars to me so I can see its red crest and the black markings on its white back. Its long beak—you cover the lens with your finger as you point to it—helps it drill into the bark for its food. I make a joke about it being a built-in fork; you nod earnestly, chin dipping towards the freckles on your collarbones, before bringing your camera to your eye, the toc-toc-tocs of the woodpecker’s lunch interspersed by the click-click-clicks of your lens.

         Further down the trail, the afternoon sun glitters through the leaves above us, the snaking river a sparkling, inky black. When we stop to watch a white ibis thrust its orange bill into the marsh, the water at the shore is clear, killifish swirling in and out of the ripples. You tell me how an ibis’s bill is straight when it’s born, curving with time to grab at creatures in the mud. You’ve always been a human encyclopedia, even in elementary school, where you’d cut conversations with corrections and inclusions, though less bird-related as your tangents are now and more about how I wrote my A’s (as a slanted circle with a dash, instead of the loop and teardrop you swore was the proper way to do it). Your eyes light up when I prod about the black spot on its beak, when I ask how big ibises get, when I ask if there are other shades besides white. The sun dances in your brown irises as your fingers outline the ibis’s figure, a bright white against swamp green.

         A hummingbird dances among yellow honeysuckle, quick enough to evade your speedy camera clicks. I ask you how fast it moves. You left before high school, before you got to see my handwriting straighten from chicken scratch. Your filled your Instagram page with pictures of cliffs over the choppy Pacific, and I think you liked a post I got tagged in of a graduation party by the Gulf. I didn’t know you moved back until our history lecture last week, where your hand flew from two rows down during attendance. When they read mine, you spun in your seat to look at me. We saw a hummingbird that day, too, dancing in the flowerbeds on campus as we walked, and you asked me to join you on a walk. Now, you finish telling me how the ruby-throated hummingbird is the most common in the state.

         We reach a bridge, walking over where part of the river breaks into a creek, and I see a turtle bathing in the sun on a rotting log. You rest your elbows on the wooden railing and point to the great blue heron beside it, its head jutting with each step. It looks like it’s walking on the surface. I call it Jesus-Bird. You don’t speak again until you snap photos of it, and I think you don’t take my joke well, but you look at me and smile. There’s a little dimple on the side of your chin. I don’t think I’ve ever noticed it. You tell me it’s the largest heron in North America, pointing to the gray-blue feathers down its hunched back, and you curve your hand over the black spot on its head as if reaching across the river to pet it. Your nails are painted the same color as the heron’s back. When we walk again, you shuffle your feet on the bridge, gliding like the Jesus-Bird, knocking the dirt from your shoes.

         You tell me the state bird is the northern mockingbird. We don’t spot it before we reach the end of the trail, exiting just across the entrance and stepping from stomped grass back to the parking lot asphalt. We see it, instead, while you’re offering me mosquito bite cream from the trunk of your car. While I nurse a bump on my elbow, we hear flapping, and you point to a pair of mockingbirds in the branches of a crepe myrtle, tiny pink petals scattered around its base. You take one photo (a single click) before we stand and stare a while. The male is larger with bright tones beneath its brown feathers, while the female is smaller with dark, beady eyes. They don’t fly away, even with how close we are. When I ask why it’s the state bird, your eyes light up again. They’re so common, you say. They nest close to people’s homes, blend into the calls of other birds. And your hair falls out of your ponytail like when we were kids, in wisps around your face, the longer strands tucked behind your ear. When they squawk, you still take a while to catch on to my joke as I say they’re mocking me. Your eyes still glitter while you talk, and there’s a little bit of sadness in them when the mockingbirds flap away. 

         I’m not sure why I say it then, but I tell you I still write my A’s the same. You respond with a quick laugh, head tossed back to the canopy. 

         We text later, and you send me the pictures from today, five different texts of ten photographs each. One is of me, elbows leaning on that wooden railing beside you. You ask me which is my favorite, and I say the mockingbird (when, admittedly, I’m more a fan of the pileated woodpecker). Your response is quick. Yes, you say, with twelve exclamation points, and I picture your eyes behind the camera lens when you turn it from your birds, focusing on me like you’re remembering, too.