ARLINGTON, TEXAS — I returned to the pond by the Ballpark this evening, this time with binoculars. Several nutrias joined Gadwall, Lesser Scaup, Pied-billed Grebes and Mallards all across the pond, and the park ducks kept to themselves beside a tiny island. I kept scanning, despite failing light and a cold wind, telling myself that there might very well be a scoter among all those scaup.

Then I found the odd bird out: a smart male pintail, who lifted his pointy retrices high when he tipped forward to dabble.

It must have been in the 50s, but the wind was too cold for my thin, short-sleeved shirt. I hurried back to the car for a good shiver.

ARLINGTON, TEXAS — Pondwater shimmered with the sky’s gentle pinks and blues. Great-tailed Grackles fluttered high overhead, calling softly, but I was sure their voices would not remain so soothing once they reached their roost. Mourning Doves flew the opposite direction, less numerous, and closer to the earth.

The imposing Ballpark sat just across the pond, and the garish orange and turquoise Titan lurked not far away. Huge jets from one of the world’s largest airports soared far above the grackle tribes. How wonderful, I thought, that I can find birds even here.

Tiny grebes gathered, leaving the ducks to themselves, until there were sixteen. They assembled at the far end of the pond, the end where I sat, as darkness increased. Some disappeared below the surface; others started to swim away. Sixteen grebes.

The wind wasn’t unpleasant, but tiny muscles raised the hair on my arms. I’d been inside all day, working from home with a cold. But my spirit was slowly being restored.

THE METROPLEX, TEXAS — This morning, I watched big black crows strutting up and down a quiet suburban street in southwest Dallas. There’d been just enough drizzle to dampen the concrete, but I daresay it won’t touch the drought.

After a few minutes, someone pulled out of a driveway and scattered the crows. Two ended up just outside the window from which I watched.

One preened, but the other began to caw.

On and on the bird called, and at last I started to pay attention. It was not an unbroken monotony of evenly pitched calls — no, the bursts of sound lasted longer, or shorter, and the pitch of the caws was not constant. Sometimes one was different from those that surrounded it. Sometimes a new burst started on a higher pitch than the final notes of the previous series.

It had to be saying something; this couldn’t be meaningless sound. Occasionally there was a faint reply, but that lone bird cried on and on.

Was it like a language? Did pitch and duration communicate — well, ideas?

“Hey! There’s a bunch of drowning earthworms on the concrete! Yum!”

Actually, I don’t know whether there were any earthworms or not.

“If any more of you four-wheeled nincompoops think you’re going to bust up our party, you’d better think again! If there’s one thing we don’t tolerate around here, it’s idiots!”

Or did the bird even remember what had happened?

Please forgive my anthropomorphizing. The moment we begin to really watch the birds, our understanding balks.

I remember the very first day Jason and I took the Puritan Birder to Lake o’ the Pines. What, she wanted to know, was a heron doing?

The question nonplussed me. The bird was huddled on a stump, or flying, or maybe both, but what was it — doing?

What was the crow doing today? Was it communication? A poem? An aria? A hymn?

Let me put it more directly. We can dimly ascertain the functions of sounds and behaviors. But we want to know why the heron left its perch to cross the lake, or why the crow continued to shout.

No matter what we come to understand, to offer as explanation, we are in the end outsiders. Observers. Wonderers.

ARLINGTON, TEXAS — It didn’t mind me, that Eurasian Collared-Dove wandering in an empty intersection.

WISE CO., TEXAS — A noisy flock of yellow-rumps played flycatcher in the trees along the creek. A Yellow-bellied Sapsucker showed off his glowing red spots in the late morning sun. Harris’s Sparrows and cardinals had dispersed from the field where they fed when I first arrived, and robins’ thin flight calls occasionally reached my ears.

A bit farther on, a Greater Yellowlegs leapt from the shallow pond, wailing in protest as a red-tail circled overhead. The wader finally settled down, but the Gadwall and roadrunner had disappeared during the commotion. The mama wigeon stayed.

Streams were more heavily wooded of course, but the dry uplands were savanna-like. Live oaks, deciduous oaks, and a few junipers (with blue berry-cones) grew in the grasslands, sometimes thick, sometimes sparse. Most of the land seemed to be in use by ranchers or energy companies, which appeared to affect the vegetation types and struck me as odd for a national grassland.

The morning had been quiet, though I’d heard Western Meadowlarks singing at an early stop, where I’d also seen a Red-bellied Woodpecker. I still don’t know exactly where the transition to golden-fronted occurs, but apparently it’s west of here.

There were cardinals and chickadees, both of the vultures, and a Red-shouldered Hawk, who’d sat still to let me admire its white-spotted back and rufous-barred breast. But sparrows had won the morning:

1. Field Sparrows
2. Vesper Sparrows
3. Savannah Sparrows
4. Fox Sparrow? (I couldn’t quite be sure.)
5. Song Sparrows
6. White-throated Sparrows
7. Harris’s Sparrows
8. White-crowned Sparrow (Just one. Odd, I thought.)
9. Dark-eyed Juncos

LAKE BRIDGEPORT, TEXAS — Coots. Ring-billed Gulls. Got to find something I couldn’t have seen in Dallas….

JACK CO., TEXAS — There’s a lot more mesquite out here, and the land has begun to heave up and down. I stopped and got out of the car as several little birds flushed. A Song Sparrow, a Field Sparrow, and a Bewick’s Wren sat atop a brushpile.

High-pitched calls drew my attention to a nearby mesquite. Titmouse. A very interesting titmouse: Its forehead was rusty, and its crest was plain gray. It was alone, and it didn’t stick around long. Then I saw a Fox Sparrow, lurking in the brush.

I stopped at a cemetery that did not have owls in its ancient cedars. Some of the people buried there were born before Texas fought with Mexico. I wonder when they came here, and why, and what it was like when they did.

A few crows perched in the mesquite. No ravens, woodpeckers, or pyrrhuloxias. I’m curious about all these birds, and I’d love more time to explore. I’ve long held the belief that it’s better to live in a place and become familiar with the land and its birds — this, instead of swooping into the hotspots chasing the specialties. But it looks like I’ll be something of a swooper, at least for the forseeable future. Not that I’m complaining.

I found a little party of three titmice on Mountain Home Road. They all looked like hybrids too, though one had a darker gray crest than the others. It still wasn’t black. A scold call was subtly different in timbre or pitch from the scolds of pure Tufted Titmice.

One bird was hammering open acorns, which it plucked from branch tips. I was impressed. Then we went our ways.