Hey tweets, Have you ever had a day that was so transcendently beautiful
that you have to look deeply into your past and wonder what you ever did to
deserve this? My husband John and I had such an afternoon and evening
yesterday. John was on his way back from a talk he gave at LIGO, and he
thought it would be great if we met somewhere in Cle Elum to look for night
birds. We agreed to meet at 7 p.m. at the Burger King.

This may sound simple to you, but in reality, I was sure I'd spend hours and
hours fruitlessly driving around trying to find the Burger King and one
husband-in-a-haystack, dressed in professor costume. John was sure his
department van would abandon him in the middle of nowhere, there to wait
endlessly for a wife who never showed up.

On a normal day, that is exactly what would have happened. But this was a
transcendent day! So instead, we met in perfect synchrony. The engineers in
the van were stunned. They all had to come into the Burger King to verify
for themselves that I really was sitting there, calmly awaiting their
arrival. They left shaking their heads, but that might have been as a result
of my telling them why John and I were meeting up: to drive deserted desert
roads, looking for bird eyes reflecting in the headlights. That sounded just
crazy to the engineers, but they wished us well and departed.

After a quick bite, John and I headed off to Robinson Canyon, birding along
the way. We arrived at dusk, in time to see a full moon rising orangely over
the hills, accompanied by a Mars so red that I know if we had wanted to, we
could have elevated ourselves to Barsoom that very night, just as John
Carter had done so many years ago. My John said he had always wanted to meet
Dejah Thoris, but I contented myself by asking him if he remembered John
Carter's green friend's name. No sense raising the green head of jealousy
when you can more profitably discuss the green warriors of the Red Planet.

At any rate, after a little more of this crosstalk, we decided to cruise
slowly up the canyon road, looking for poorwills. We got as far as the
cattle gate without seeing a thing, passed through and continued to the end
of the line, where someone has dragged heavy concrete barriers across the
road. At that point, we got out and walked. It was still light enough to see
barn swallows hunting bugs, as well as numerous towhees and assorted bats.
Tons of bats, in fact. Bats so numerous that you could have passed out
"hello, my name is" tags and called it a bat convention. No poorwills,
however.

So we went back to the car, turned around and cruised slowly downhill. And
then we saw it: an eery orange globe sitting in the middle of the road.
Suddenly, it rose up, and we saw the white tail feather tips, the rounded
wings, the moth-like flight, the big mouth. A poorwill in perfect light. It
floated back down to the road and presented its profile to us, one glowing
orange eye the color of a jack-o-lantern lit from within. Then slowly it
turned its head toward us and we saw two round jack-o-lantern orbs. The most
beautiful color. The poorwill stared at us briefly, then turned sideways
again and rose up to catch another bug. Back down, more head turning, more
bug catching. At last, it presented both eyes to us, floated up slowly like
a balloon, and then disappeared into the trees. We started breathing again.

Of course after that, all we wanted to do was see more poorwills. We drove
up and down that road so many times I was sure the householder at the paved
end of the road was going to call the police. We saw three more poorwills,
but none as clearly or as beautifully as the first one. Who would have
thought that such a breath-taking moment could be found so easily and so
close to home, just an hour and a half's drive away? - Connie, Seattle

csidles at isomedia.com

Here's a list of all the birds I saw on our quick trip:
double-crested cormorant
turkey vulture
California quail
mourning dove
rock dove
common poorwill
common nighthawk
Vaux's swift
rufous hummingbird
northern flicker
pileated woodpecker (flying over the freeway on the wetside)
hairy woodpecker
western wood-pewee
barn swallow
Steller's jay
American crow
common raven
black-capped chickadee
red-breasted nuthatch
pygmy nuthatch
house wren
mountain bluebird
American robin
cedar waxwing
European starling
Cassin's vireo
Nashville warbler
yellow-rumped warbler
MacGillivray's warbler
Wilson's warbler
spotted towhee
chipping sparrow
white-crowned sparrow
western tanager
house sparrow
American goldfinch
red crossbill
Cassin's finch