Looking up
A week ago, I stared up at creosote fluff balls glowing like Christmas ornaments against a bright blue sky. Belly full of lunch, head on my backpack, beginning to drift off into post-sandwich slumber, I mused at how long these white fruits have held on. For a month, at least. It felt good to let my brain unravel from the trance of seed-picking, to once again look at the world around and notice, maybe ask questions. I wiggled myself into the sand, glanced over at the expanse of dunes, and reminded myself how weird it is that I’ve been surrounded by this all morning, just looking down at white dalea fruits instead of over at the dunes. A breeze tossed the glowing white orbs and creosote leaves and my hair.
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On Tuesday, ‘round 10 am, I collected arrow weed seeds with only one headphone in. My silver umbrella (probably the coolest thing I own), strapped onto my backpack, shaded me from endless light above. A raven squawked once, twice. On the second squawk, I had to look, craning my neck around the umbrella in what I thought was the right direction. I saw no raven, so tried again, sporadically, this time staring straight into the sun and stumbling back and grumbling. Still no glimpse of the raven. It would not stop the ruckus and something in me needed to get eyes on it. Carefully curving my head around my umbrella and peering up into the sky, I finally spotted the source - big black bird against bright blue sky.
Later, when military planes rumbled overhead, loud and impossible to ignore, back and forth, I gave up trying to spot them after one attempt.
Much later, sitting on the edge of the town pool, feet dangling in the water, I smiled up at the comparatively kind glow of the afternoon sun hitting my face. Above, on that never ending page of blue, two jets sketch their journey southward as a pair of birds head north. They pass each other, never meeting, tracing parallel lines in the sky.
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On Wednesday, I trudged through salty sand about 50 meters from the canal which separates fields of crops from desert. I walked through creosote and morman tea, old backpacks and shoes, the pluchea sericea (arrow weed) that we had been picking all day, flagging tape of brown and blue, milkweed, other surprises. On my way to find screwbean mesquite. To my left, somewhere above the canal, a white egret flopped through the air, swooping and flapping in a small patch of sky at a 45 degree angle from the horizon. The ever present blue broken, for the moment, by her. And then a wind came, or a tractor, or both, lifting clouds of brown dust into the air with the bird. Two large patches, growing, moving north.
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On Thursday, I lay with my back on a thicket of dead brush maybe 2 meters high. Sipping water from my camelback, resting after a bout of bushwhacking/trudging/jumping, staring up at the morning sky. On the top of the rocky mountain to the south of me, a vulture stood on the tallest rock and opened their wings to the sun.
https://nextgensd.com/border/embattled-borderlands/
Check out this beautifully done multimedia story about migration of many species across the US/Mexico border. The first half or so focuses specifically on this area!