THE ROLLING PLAINS, TEXAS — There is a place, on the plains of Texas, where the ruddy Caprock gleams miles away. Huge old cedars rise out of the grasses, and if you look closely, you can see movement behind them. If you have the courage to approach them, you might feel a tingle in the air as you pass into the ruined courtyard. You might want to speak in whispers.

There is no roof, but the green walls stretch toward the blue sky above. The little homes inside are decaying, furniture and all, as if the humans just faded away with the years.

Or maybe they’re bursting out of the windows now, transformed, white and soft with dangling legs. Of course we don’t believe in such things today, but I understand why the ancients did.

They are Barn Owls. Our intrusion stirred them up, and we watched them flying back and forth, dark eyes, pallid faces, long feet, throbbing hearts — ours.

There is a place where bobwhites thrive, there on the Texas plains. We tallied over a hundred, more perhaps than I had seen in years combined.

Our host, Phillip Kite, had a deep Texas drawl, a master’s in psychology, and a solid knowledge of the West Texas birds. His son Aaron, a boy of nearly 10, liked birding too.

It was a good day: 1 Prairie Falcon, 1 Ferruginous Hawk, 2 Pyrrhuloxias. Life Chihuahuan Ravens on 261 past Kalgary. Everything was bone dry, and the cedar breaks below the escarpment held not a single robin, waxwing, solitaire, or bluebird. Only the scrappy mockingbirds held their own.

We finished early, returning to the marina on White River Lake. Courtney and I decided to get a head start on the trip back home, but things spiralled out of control, and by 9:30 — 9:30 on New Year’s Eve — I’d collapsed on a bed in Odessa, Texas.

ydhttmwfi: Tradition …

ARROWHEAD STATE PARK, OKLA. — Just after ticking my 90th red-tail, I swung off the highway at a sign for Arrowhead State Park. I wanted a proper look at the cross timbers. I’d noted the rough, oaky hills on recent drives through this part of Oklahoma but needed to see more.

I drove around the park awhile first. Black and Turkey Vultures soared over the hills, and the lake was deserted. I finally parked by the visitor center and took Outlaw Trail down the hill.

Mosses dot the rocky ground.

The trees weren’t large — maybe only 20 feet. Their bark and the rocks at their feet were crusty with pale lichens, and I tried to be careful where I stepped. Tough twigs contrasted sharply with the deep blue sky, and my sweater was a little too warm for the sun.

I wondered about the hole in this trunk — I wondered who had lived there.

Surely there was gaiety in summer, but for now, gray titmice moved close to the ground, almost silent, probably killing the insects who only wanted to sleep until spring.

I shook my sleeve in irritation at the droning of a fly — then immediately repented. This perhaps was the only creature who remembered a day when these trees were young. These trees, living in the stones. They might have lived through fire, ice and the coming of the white man.

Everywhere were details. Tiny forbs lay curled and dessicated on the mosses, amid the leaves and seeds.

Tough, leathery, intricate, the leaves hung on.

ATOKA CO., OKLA. — The sun’s maddening daggers in my eyes drove me to seek refuge, but west was the only way to go. It had set before I reached Boggy Depot, so my plan didn’t work at all.

There wasn’t much to the state park there. I wandered round the cemetery, and I thought I heard a grunt. I looked up to dozens of cormorants whooshing softly overhead, and as they disappeared over trees, I heard another grunt. Was that … you?

It wasn’t a hostile place, but I did not belong. As I drove back toward 69, I scanned the trees. Never had picked up that hundredth red-tail.

A silhouette — no red-tail!

The Barred Owl resented my abrupt attention, and it flew from the fencepost to a safer tree. I could see it still, streaks, eyes … but I supposed I should clear the road.

The southwest was lit just dimly and strewn with wildly scattered clouds, as if the sun had burned itself out in a fury and all that was left were these darkened wisps. Venus shone high above the chaos, and I suddenly thought of Tolkein’s starfolk. There, in Oklahoma. And the image didn’t go of me, despite Southern gospel on the radio.

GREENE CO., MO. — The weathermen had predicted a chance of snow for this morning, but we awoke to a wet and quite unfrozen world.

One of my gifts was “Birds of the Solomons, Vanuatu & New Caledonia,” and I pored over it as the family arrived for dinner. It has solved a mystery for me: The triller I saw my last day in Port Vila was of the Polynesian persuasion. I didn’t think he looked very long tailed, but in this case the white eyebrow I observed was diagnostic. So was the two-note call, evidently.

My grandfather wanted to look through the book and quickly became enthralled by its colorful plates of whistlers, honeyeaters, parrots, pigeons, and doves. He was amazed by the subtle differences between species — and the immense differences between our birds and the birds of the South Pacific. I tried to explain a bit about island biogeography, but my own knowledge on the subject is sorely lacking.

Looking at the pictures, and talking about the birds, I could feel myself getting excited again. I have so much still to see!

I quietly renewed my resolve to write Brian Coates about my Atoll Starlings.

Chickadees and titmice fed just outside the window as we feasted together at noon. House Finches and goldfinches came sometimes, and juncos always skitter around.

Chickadees are a Christmas bird to me, and I haven’t figured out why. Perhaps the feeling grew during winters and winters of feeding birds. In the years before my serious birding began, I probably never saw them outside of winter. Their crisp black and white, their cheery-sounding calls, and their rambunctious acrobatics seem perfectly suited to brisk winds and snow. But no snow this year.

I saw chickadees after dark too, printed on a turtleneck that we brought to Aunt Adele. We went by her room to give her a gift and sing a few carols too. Mom put the package on her lap, and she said it was very nice. But she didn’t know what to do with it.

She rubbed her hands across the shiny paper but couldn’t open it, even with coaching. They opened it for her and showed her the clothes — sweaters and turtlenecks so she can’t unbutton them. And one had chickadees and pretty blue birds on pine boughs. I think she liked them.

We sang too, several carols, but she barely responded. She’d always loved carols. I’d like to think she still does, even though she can’t tell us anymore.

After goodbye, we went on to watch “March of the Penguins,” another of my gifts, at grandpa’s duplex. We hadn’t gotten snow, but we saw plenty of it then, as we marveled at the story of ongoing life in one of the world’s most sterile of places.

OSAGE CO., OKLA. — All the other birders had gone, leaving the two of us together.

She kept her head turned away, only occasionally swiveling her white face toward the road. Her deadly bill was almost concealed in soft white feathers, and she squinted her eyes nearly shut. Her body was heavily barred, and the fallen tree beside her cast its shadows across her bulk.

Why do we long for fellowship with creatures so different from ourselves? I wanted to see the places she had seen, and see them through her eyes. I wanted to travel with her, to see the journey she had taken, to feel the drives that had pushed her so far from home. But perhaps my wishes were too dreadful.

Meadowlarks and Horned Larks foraged among the cow paddies between her and me. When I’d first arrived, the friendly birder who pointed her out had casually mentioned Smith’s Longspurs. What? I kept hoping they’d appear.

I’d moved down the road a bit and was refocusing my scope when I heard a sweet twittering behind me. I whirled. Smith’s Longspurs? I had no idea what they sounded like, but maybe that was it!

No buffy passerines. I looked up into the blue, hearing the sound again. Bald Eagles. Three of them, circling together in the sunshine. Twittering. Wow.

I looked back across the pond, wondering whether I’d have spotted her on my own. She blended in beside the log, so different from the white garbage bags that had made my heart pound earlier that day.

A flock of little birds landed in the mud beside the water. I whipped my scope in their direction, scanning the edge and trying to focus at the same time. They blended in perfectly; I couldn’t see a thing. Then, just as I made out the outline of a small brown songbird, the whole flock took to the air again and disappeared over a rise.

I found it difficult to leave the Snowy Owl. She looked my direction one more time, and I wanted to believe that she saw me. She looked the other way, then resumed her original posture. Indifference? Exhaustion? I was not privileged to understand.

COPAN LAKE, OKLA. — A Bartlesville birder had advised owlers to swing by Copan Lake and see the White-winged Scoter. My northeasterly course took me on through Bowring and right past Copan, but the gate to the park was closed. The reservoir was fairly large, and I couldn’t imagine how I would see the scoter anyway.

But a pull-off on 75 looked inviting, and after a moment’s hesitation, I swung in. Still sitting in my car, I scanned what water I could see over the treetops. Gulls … and something black. OK, better get out of the car.

I set up the scope, and, scanning across a handful of goldeneyes, found the black duck. I strained to see what details I could, and I could almost imagine a tiny white eye patch and an orange bill. But perhaps it was just that — imagination. I wish birders with a better scope would show up.

It wasn’t immediate, but it wasn’t long either. A little pickup pulled up, and I saw the occupants looking through the windshield with binoculars. When they got out, I quizzed them about their intentions and their optics. I told them I thought I’d found him.

The man brought over his scope, which had a digital camera neatly mounted over the eyepiece. He offered to let me find my bird. The first dark bird I saw was decidedly not a scoter. It was then I realized I’d forgotten to consider other options, like cormorants.

As my stomach sank, I looked up to scan with my binocs, and I was relieved to see that the scope was pointed too far right. Panning left, I picked up the bird. “Aha!” I said in triumph.

They both had a look, and they let me look again before I left. I had to be on my way.

I’d seen white-wings on Cape Cod, but the snowy was a lifer. I was tempted to stop for ice cream, but that tradition isn’t much fun alone.

ARLINGTON, TEXAS — Running a few minutes behind, I heard the robins on my way to the car. Four cormorants flew over the parking lot. There were the White-winged Doves along Arkansas, and the gulls over supermarket corner as usual.

By noon, I was ready to spend the last 30 minutes of the year in the park across the street. But the car was dead — lights left on in my haste. Blast.

I sat to eat on the large rocks beside our building and watched a Great Egret in the pond. Yellow-rumps flew back and forth, calling insistently. Rock Pigeons soared overhead sometimes.

My back was to the sun, which warmed me unless the wind puffed. So this is the end of the solar year, the solar year I set out to chronicle as I huddled by my parents’ house in Missouri, waiting for the very first bird.

I had been excited to observe the year not according to our quirky calendar, but according to our little planet’s movement round the sun. This is how I said it then:

At the winter solstice, the sun hovers briefly over the Tropic of Capricorn, leaving the Northern Hemisphere cold and dark. Summertime birds have fled to the tropics; northern birds have abandoned their homes, flying hundreds of miles in search of food. College students (also driven by hunger) have gone home for Christmas. And then, slowly, the sun begins to clumb, up past the equator and on to the Tropic of Cancer, pushing the birds north as it goes, to sing and mate and raise their families. As days grow hotter, the birds cease to sing, the hemisphere begs for relief, and eventually, the sun retreats, back to the underbelly of the world. That is the story of the New Year. That is the story I wanted to tell.

I quickly abandoned the list I’d set out to keep. I hadn’t yet conceived of a blog, and I stopped writing for a season too. Newspapers to put out, you know, and one last academic push.

Then my notions went topsy-turvy when I flew to that “underbelly of the world.” Suddenly it was winter again — though you certainly couldn’t tell by the weather. My narrow perspective was broken open wider.

There were four scaup in the pond, a female in the lead and three males close together behind her. A diminutive grebe rested on the water. Then it was time to go back to work.