The Big Yard: Birdwatching in a Time of Quarantine
Or: The Evolution of a Pajama Lister
Day 495 of the Pandemic (July 26, 2021)
Monday morning, I leave for a week of camping and fishing at the East Fork of the Black River near Alpine in eastern Arizona. Just me. My friend and hiking compadre Walker won’t be joining me, as he had for many previous summers. This trip will be a memorial for him, a way to remember him with rain tarps and fresh-caught trout.
I’ve packed his spinning rod and walking stick.
In the late afternoon, I pull into Site #6, our campsite on the East Fork. Like this one, most of the sites are empty. Walker’ magic at work. I set up my “tent” the way he favored—a simple tarp strung over a cot and sleeping bag. Then I fit together my split-bamboo fly rod, “Daughter’s Luck 2017 #5”—a vintage rod with Bakelite reel I refurbished and named for the Middle Daughter, who also has the magic, and tie on one of her handmade woolly buggers.
Robins chirp. Steller’s jays screech. An osprey whirls above the steep talus slopes. A great blue heron wings up and down the river as if it’s a highway. In twenty minutes, I catch two Apache trout. Tomorrow’s breakfast. With pancakes. By dusk, I have my limit (4).
At my last cast, a beaver emerges from the water, pauses to look at me with one dark eye, then slips over the rocks and dives again into the river.
Tuesday
I wake in the predawn darkness to the monotonous double-toots of a pygmy owl. A harsh croaking draws my eyes to the river in time to see six common mergansers swimming downstream—new birds for my East Fork list.. Robins pull worms from the wet ground with such cliché that the image transports me to my Michigan childhood.
Soon, the campground host comes by with his dog Marley and a worn copy of Walker’s “Notes from a Solitary Beast” and other published writing and photos about our time here on the river. “He gave me this and I share it with everybody,” he says, showing me some thick, rolled pages I immediately recognize. Yesterday, Dick met me soon after I arrived and asked about my friend.
“Walker died last month,” I said. “I’m here to celebrate him.” He was genuinely shocked and saddened, assuming he died of Covid until I told him it was pancreatic cancer.
Now, in curtains of sunlight that slant through the spruce and fir, we thumb through the few soiled pages of his life.
Wednesday
Note to self: Always wear long pants when going upriver during monsoon season. From the flesh-clutching wild rose, raspberry vines, and notorious stinging nettle, angry red welts lash my ankles and shins. I should know better—how many times has this happened? At least I have a nice brown trout to show for the sleep I’ll lose tonight while applying hydrocortisone to the pain.
I say “nice,” but the trout is a fingerling compared to the 23-inch lunker Walker caught on our first trip here, to the East Fork—my favorite fly-fishing spot in Arizona. The place where I taught my children how to fish. He hooked it on a crayfish he cast into a muddy backwater pool not 30 feet from our camp. I remember the grin on his face as he held it up to me. I remember the advice he gave me the rest of the week on how to catch brown trout.
Thunder and rain all afternoon. I crawl under my tarp and listen to the rataplan while reading more of Walker’s pages from an unpublished manuscript that will remain that way. He wanted it otherwise, like he wanted his ashes scattered in this place. Unfortunately, last wishes mean nothing without a written testament and witnesses. And Walker had neither.
Thursday
Rain all night and most of the day. This is weather for mushrooms. With trout.
Friday
This morning’s predawn wakeup comes with the drumming of a hairy woodpecker. MacGillivray’s and red-faced warblers thread themselves through wild currant shrubs chasing insects. A western tanager dives into the willows on the far riverbank. I check off 15 species this morning, a high for the trip.
My camp neighbors from San Diego have been eating the local mushrooms for several days “and we’re still alive!” the wife says. Her husband shows me where I can harvest a cauliflower mushroom the size of a human brain and shares his favorite recipe with me, which mostly involves sautéing in butter and white wine.
“Better than morels,” he says.
I pluck the mushroom.
When Dick walks by in his green Forest Service uniform and hat, white beard halfway down his chest, hauling his own sack of mushrooms, I hand him Walker’s walking stick as a parting gift.
“Do you think he had any regrets?” he asks.
I can see Dick identifies with him, a loner without a family or home. He’ll probably die in his travel trailer. “No,” I say. “He never did. He lived and died the way he wanted. In obscurity.”
Saturday
Dick checks on me as he always does, Marley trailing behind him. He tells me Walker may be angry with him for sharing his writing. “Probably meet me at the Pearly Gates,” he says.
“It’s weird,” I say. “People talking about him. It’s like he’s here, like his ghost wanders the trails along the river.”
“I’ll never forget him.” As he turns and heads back down the road, I notice he’s using Walker’s walking stick.
Thanks for Subscribing!
What a beautiful read!
We lived in the White mountains for years. It's beautiful there.