Aransas National Wildlife Refuge
Texas Gulf Coast, 1989
Look! There!
Fresh from the cover
of Birds of North America,
its bouncy flight
paints shrub tops
red, green, yellow, blue—
leads you
along the grassy
path, binoculars
drawn, eye on bird.
I glance down,
see the diamondback
fly past
your bare ankle.
Ah, nothing like the perils of bird watching to clarify the mind. My former wife, Therese, was usually in the lead. Just an hour before this snake encounter, she had come within one stride of stepping on the tail of an eight foot alligator. In each case we were on the trail of the painted bunting, a wildly hued, seed-eating bird about four and one-half inches long.
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