Nonfiction / Brendan Walsh

:: Florida’s Mockingbirds Like to Perch on Street Signs: Some Birds I know In South Florida ::

1. Street Roost­er

The neigh­bors across the street bought a roost­er last month, and it’ll be the cause of my death or incar­cer­a­tion. It’s a pre-pre-dawn roost­er. Up at four, crow­ing towards what’s still night for most of us. 

When the roost­er screams, I go out to my lit­tle bal­cony and scream back “SHUT UP,” and then he does for a moment. He actu­al­ly shuts up. I think, did it work, is he gone? Did he run back to his farm, or prefer­ably, to the impos­si­bly vast swamp where he was eat­en by a gator? Two min­utes lat­er, he cawww-caws and I sit up and make a pot of coffee. 

We’ve cul­ti­vat­ed a cul­ture that thrives on space away from oth­ers, on a pro­found lack of com­mu­ni­ty sol­i­dar­i­ty, where a per­son in the mid­dle of a city can pur­chase a roost­er that wakes the entire neigh­bor­hood at four, and face no account­abil­i­ty. Who­ev­er bought the roost­er obvi­ous­ly thought that it might serve some pur­pose to alle­vi­ate their lone­li­ness. They assumed that if they had a stu­pid roost­er peck­ing and yelling out­side their house there’d be some extractable mean­ing. Why else would you buy a roost­er? What’s worse, I believe, is that we aren’t doing any­thing to con­front this. No one feels a right to defend pub­lic space. There’s too much on the line, espe­cial­ly in Flori­da, where any­one can be legal­ly shot with lit­tle provo­ca­tion or explanation.

Still, goad­ed by the encour­age­ment of my abo­li­tion­ist friend who affirmed that “anti-carcer­al­i­ty doesn’t extend to roost­ers,” I called Broward Coun­ty Ani­mal Con­trol, who told me they would send some­one to check on the situation. 

The roost­er has risen ear­li­er since, cer­tain­ly to spite me, though I don’t blame him. In anoth­er con­text, I’d love him. I’ve spent won­der­ful days on farms with roost­ers scratch­ing along the grounds. On a farm, a roost­er serves a pur­pose. They defend and pos­ture and impreg­nate. They aren’t sym­bols of any­thing but them­selves. Here, in the mid­dle of Hol­ly­wood, Flori­da, a city of approx­i­mate­ly 158,000 peo­ple, the roost­er is a sym­bol of loss and the absur­di­ty of a soci­ety drained of its life force yet is still called to wor­ship the gods of com­merce and cap­i­tal­ism. If I were more of a Chris­t­ian, the roost­er might even rep­re­sent a fun­da­men­tal­ist bea­con of the com­ing rapture. 

The roost­er is as native to South Flori­da as I am: not at all. Archae­ol­o­gists believe that the first chick­ens were domes­ti­cat­ed in South­east Asia and Chi­na. Through the migra­tions so com­mon to our species, roost­ers end­ed up in Hol­ly­wood and every oth­er back­yard and farm of the hab­it­able globe. When I lived in Laos, dozens of roost­ers woke me up every morn­ing, but since I looked out at a dirt road where monks col­lect­ed alms from devout Bud­dhist women, it didn’t seem like such a dis­rup­tion. It felt as though every­thing were per­fect­ly in place. 

What most upsets me about the roost­er, oth­er than the sleep­less­ness to which I’ve grown accus­tomed and out­raged, is how he drowns out the birdsong. 

2. The Flori­da Mockingbird

The Flori­da Mock­ing­bird likes to perch on street signs. It posts up on STOP signs and NO PARKING signs, sings casu­al­ly its life-chang­ing tune, then bursts away to the next sign or branch or streetlight. 

It is offi­cial­ly known as the com­mon mock­ing­bird, but down here, since they seem to be every­where and are the state bird (many oth­er states claim the mock­ing­bird as well), I call it the Flori­da Mock­ing­bird. I don’t real­ly think it makes sense to be proud of one’s coun­try or place of birth, because those are ran­dom occur­rences and abstrac­tions, but it makes per­fect sense to be proud of the birds you live amongst. Of all the things on this human-con­struct­ed earth, bird-prox­im­i­ty seems purest. 

This is my favorite bird in the world, and the only one whose song, so mel­liflu­ous and oth­er­world­ly, has made me cry. Oth­er bird songs have made me want to cry, or feel like cry­ing, but our Flori­da Mock­ing­bird is the only one to do it. 

It was a week­day morn­ing in Feb­ru­ary. I walked out of my unit, looked upon the pool, smooth as an ironed nap­kin, the sun burned hope­ful orange, and the mock­ing­birds whis­tled through the alley­way, echoed in the court­yard, and I near­ly fell over. I believed in God so sure­ly then. It was such an obvi­ous thing, if only for that moment. 

The Flori­da Mockingbird’s plumage isn’t par­tic­u­lar­ly beau­ti­ful. It is small, gray, and unas­sum­ing, with a white bel­ly and two dis­tin­guish­ing white wing bars. When it sings, though, when it sings. It inter­ests me how we’ve even evolved, as this curi­ous­ly destruc­tive ape, to find such a song plea­sur­able. I can’t imag­ine the kind of human who hears the mockingbird’s song and doesn’t feel over­whelmed with won­der. How could you begin to under­stand this kind of per­son? What secret inhu­man­i­ty do they harbor?

It is spir­i­tu­al to exist along­side some­thing so ele­men­tal­ly per­fect. Every day, dur­ing breaks between my class­es, I walk through cam­pus with an eye out for wildlife. I see baby rac­coons and pos­sums, tur­tles, all man­ner of birds (which, don’t wor­ry, I’ll dis­cuss), igua­nas by the hun­dreds, and of course mock­ing­birds. Espe­cial­ly in late spring when cam­pus clears of under­grads, the birds sing even loud­er. On signs for cam­pus safe­ty, and in palm trees, on pic­nic tables, atop lamp­posts, they sing. I’ve tak­en to record­ing their songs and post­ing them to insta­gram. It’s infor­ma­tion that I con­sid­er vital­ly impor­tant. Look! I write. Some­thing is singing some­where! All is not lost!

Short­ly after­wards, I con­sid­er how quick­ly the streets flood from a brief storm, and how the gov­er­nor has made it near­ly impos­si­ble for felons to vote even after the pass­ing of Amend­ment 4, and the ran­dom and cru­el anti-LGBTQ bills sped through the state leg­is­la­ture, the crim­i­nal­i­ty of wom­an­hood, and the denial of a cli­mate cat­a­stro­phe that lit­er­al­ly knocks on our doors. A mock­ing­bird sings some­where and it is beautiful. 

3. Boat-tailed Grack­le

On cam­pus, the boat-tailed grack­les fight each oth­er over Dump­ster space out­side the din­ing hall. They enjoy stand­ing on moun­tains of trash. Their call is shrill then coy then goofy. Their voice is almost iri­des­cent, like the male’s feath­ers, which look black at first until the light hits them, then they’re shiny greens and blues. When a boat-tailed grack­le takes off, it seems as though its tail is too heavy for its wings. 

Yes­ter­day morn­ing, an hour after I decid­ed to write this, a boat-tailed grack­le dive-bombed my head on the Hol­ly­wood Beach Broad­walk. I took it as a sign from God. Thank you, boat-tailed grackle. 

There’s some cor­re­la­tion between grack­le enthu­si­asm and human exhaus­tion. The more human soci­ety col­laps­es on itself, the more grack­le soci­ety flour­ish­es. Every grack­le is a misanthrope.

4. Roseate Spoon­bill

Roseate spoon­bills are near­ly per­fect. They’re flamin­go-pink for the same rea­sons flamin­gos are flamin­go-pink: they eat a diet high in crus­taceans with carotenoids. They’re in the same fam­i­ly as the white ibis, a fool­ish-look­ing white or brown feath­ered bird. Bright col­ors play tricks on our sim­ple brains. 

The sec­ond time I saw roseate spoon­bills was with a for­mer part­ner I hadn’t seen in six months. She had moved away to a farm, and I was alone, aban­doned, then quar­an­tined, but we stayed in touch irre­spon­si­bly. Before she moved to the next farm, we decid­ed to do a road trip for old time’s sake, and because we were a bit lost with­out each oth­er. I picked her up at the farm, way upstate near the Geor­gia bor­der. We stayed a night at the farm, and a sum­mer storm washed in and soaked the earth. She lived in a tiny house with a cor­ru­gat­ed iron roof–the rain bounced all night and I rose to pee out­side, off the porch. Such vast qui­et between the raindrops.

Next day we drove down to Cedar Key, a lit­tle-known arch­i­pel­ago on Florida’s Gulf Coast, pret­ty much in the armpit. A poet­ry pro­fes­sor of mine used to talk about Cedar Key in whis­pers because she didn’t want any­one to find out about it. Peo­ple have found out, but not too many. It feels like the past there; some­thing that prob­a­bly-racist folks call “Old Flori­da.” It’s got that part Hem­ing­way, part Faulkn­er, part Viet­namese fish­ing vil­lage vibe. We were imme­di­ate­ly hap­py there. 

Our motel sat near a noseeum-infest­ed inlet, and a bald cypress unfurled roseate spoon­bills at dusk. Pink and green turned green. They flew out into the flat bay. We kayaked, enter­tained by teenaged dol­phin bobs and dives five feet from our ves­sel, then we fol­lowed the coast­line to a small beach, where we land­ed the kayaks to rest awhile. Pel­i­cans hung out in the tide and on the docks, hop­ing a fish­er­man would throw out his bait, or the fried clam restau­rant would chuck a few scraps. Always poach­ing, the pelicans.

Back at the motel, spoon­bills again, roseate as ever, hov­ered back and forth over­head. It can’t be real, I said to her. We rel­ished the words roseate spoon­bill. Who could say such a name and not blush? 

The final night at Cedar Key, we ate a pile of steamed clams on the hotel deck over­look­ing the tree, noseeums bit my ankles to a swollen pink pulp. She asked if I want­ed to go inside. I said no, I want to see more roseate spoon­bills. Maybe they could sense my need­i­ness or the harm they caused, keep­ing us togeth­er when we need­ed a clean break, but they didn’t return. We want­ed pink and wide-beak and honk. We want­ed to stare at what we always shared. The roseate spoon­bill is a self­ish bird in that regard, hoard­ing its bril­liance from us, but it’s also kind to grant any grace in this lit­tle life. 

5. Brown Pel­i­can

There are a cou­ple of pel­i­cans at the Dania Beach Pier that wait for fish­er­men to make a mis­take or chuck their bait. They have names; nam­ing is a fun­ny thing that humans do. We name unname­able things, dou­ble-name them some­times too. We say “pel­i­can” but we also call it “Stan­ley.” The pel­i­can doesn’t know it’s a pel­i­can, and it cer­tain­ly doesn’t know its name is Stan­ley, or Bri­an, or Karen. The Dania Beach Pier pel­i­cans have learned to linger around us. They approach with their mas­sive gul­lets and gaze into our palms. They look at our hands as the ancients looked to the sky when they des­per­ate­ly need­ed rain. 

Last Feb­ru­ary, I took my vis­it­ing friends to the pier to watch the fish­er­men, and to stand out in the ocean, look south towards Mia­mi and north to Fort Laud­erdale, east into the impos­si­ble atlantic. It was clear and bright, the kind of day you say “this is why, this is why” and peo­ple down here know what you mean. 

The first up-close encounter with a pel­i­can is always rat­tling. They’re large birds, some­times weigh­ing up to ten pounds, with a sev­en-foot wingspan. They walk like tod­dlers around the pier deck, inves­ti­gat­ing fish-stocked cool­ers and buck­ets of chum. Once in a while, they man­age to open an unlocked cool­er and steal a fish. Spec­ta­tors watch and laugh, peo­ple with fish­ing poles chase the ridicu­lous birds into the sky. 

My friends were stunned and fas­ci­nat­ed by the pel­i­cans among us. Dave, crit­ter-lover that he is, attempt­ed to touch one. I told him no, please do not pet that pel­i­can. He didn’t, thank God. We watched peo­ple, all men from the West Indies and South Amer­i­ca, speak­ing Span­ish and Cre­ole and Flori­da Eng­lish, reel in fish and baby sharks. The sea gives, but we take more than it can give. 

A thin guy in a sleeve­less shirt stamped his cig­a­rette as he approached us. A pel­i­can wad­dled near­by, and the guy addressed it by name. The guy said, “You wan­na see a pel­i­can go to sleep?” I said, “No, that’s alright.” I didn’t know what he meant, but I fig­ured it couldn’t be good. Sleep has so many con­no­ta­tions. He replied, “Let me show you.” I said, “Oh shit, what are you going to do?”

He grabbed the pel­i­can by its beak, twist­ed it down. I said, “Stop, it’s okay. You don’t need to show us.” He wasn’t lis­ten­ing. The pel­i­can bare­ly resist­ed, and as the guy brought it to its back, his oth­er hand shift­ed to its bel­ly, which he gen­tly rubbed. For a moment, the pel­i­can bucked back, then it was over­come by the forced com­pas­sion, that coer­cive soft­ness, and its eyes rolled. He loos­ened his grip on the beak, removed his hand from the bel­ly, and stood up. There the pel­i­can rest­ed for ten sec­onds before it roused itself upright and wad­dled off. 

“That’s how you put a pel­i­can to sleep,” he boast­ed, lit anoth­er smoke, and went back to his pole. 

6. Egypt­ian Goose

There’s only one bird that I don’t care for. Hate is such a strong word for a thing that isn’t capa­ble of hat­ing me back (we should be equi­table with our emo­tions), but the Egypt­ian Goose is close. In casu­al con­ver­sa­tion with strangers I have said, “I hate Egypt­ian geese.” Most peo­ple can’t dis­tin­guish between an Egypt­ian goose and a mus­covy duck. In fact, I hear peo­ple call these geese ducks pret­ty reg­u­lar­ly, and I cor­rect them. They don’t look any­thing alike. I don’t real­ize that this cor­rec­tion is annoy­ing until much lat­er, when I’m alone in bed and recount­ing my dai­ly infractions. 

Egypt­ian geese are anoth­er inva­sive species to Flori­da. They’re from, obvi­ous­ly, Egypt, and wide­ly across Africa. They have sleek tawny and white feath­ers, and a dis­tinct­ly white head. It’s a fair­ly hand­some and regal species, though their eyes are red and soul­less; they look like the moment right before a human turns into a zom­bie, that tran­si­tion from liv­ing to undead, empa­thy to vacan­cy. This isn’t to assume that their emo­tion­al expe­ri­ence is devoid of com­plex­i­ty. In fact, I’m sure that they’re incred­i­bly anx­ious and lov­ing (in the bird way). This is most­ly why I’m not fond of them. It’s a clas­sic case of an inva­sive, aggres­sive species get­ting mad at anoth­er species for being inva­sive and aggressive. 

I was first attacked by an Egypt­ian goose in 2017, my first spring in Flori­da. I grew up around Cana­di­an geese, but they usu­al­ly pre­sent­ed a threat in the form of mass-shit­tings along every side­walk in the ear­ly days of New Eng­land spring. The Egypt­ian geese mat­ed and nest­ed and raised their goslings on my cam­pus, pocked with ponds and water­ways, palms and thick­ets. Like a fool, I hadn’t researched the behav­iors of local wildlife before mov­ing down. Sure, I was thrilled by gators and igua­nas, but I nev­er took the time to exam­ine the grit­ty details of aggres­sive bird species. In a way, I sup­pose, I was ask­ing for a lesson. 

After a pre-teach­ing gym ses­sion I walked out­side to sun and heat, the east­ern bronze fold­ing into pink and pur­ple. I hadn’t slept the night before. I have trou­ble sleep­ing, some­times the wak­ing is ran­dom and oth­er times it’s because I have to pee, or because a roost­er moved into the neigh­bor­hood. My fam­i­ly is noto­ri­ous­ly bad with sleep. We always wake first and intol­er­a­bly ear­ly, and some­times we stay up all night wracked with vague anx­i­ety. A goose approached me as I walked past the pond near­est my build­ing, and I took it as a sign of curi­ous friendship.

I greet­ed it with a jovial and exhaust­ed, “Hel­lo goose!” and its pace quick­ened. “Whatcha doin, goose?” I asked with some alarm.

It ele­vat­ed and began honk­ing, then flew towards my face for an aer­i­al assault. I ducked and dropped my bags, but it pur­sued me, flap­ping and strik­ing at the back of my head. I respond­ed with unin­tel­li­gi­ble fear bab­ble, sounds that Egypt­ian geese metab­o­lize as nutri­tion. I hus­tled fifty-feet before the goose relent­ed, and I checked the hori­zons to ensure that no one saw me cow­er and run from a bird much small­er and less pow­er­ful than I. In God’s good­ness, the cam­pus was emp­ty, still too ear­ly for under­grads to trudge to class. Unaware as I was of the nest­ing prac­tices of the goose, I assumed that this was a ran­dom act of dick­ish­ness. When I told my stu­dents lat­er, they laughed and wished that this could have been cap­tured on video. I did too, but only so they could wit­ness the bru­tal­i­ty firsthand.

A few days lat­er, stu­dents showed me their own videos of Egypt­ian goose attacks. While they ate lunch on the quad or on pic­nic tables out­side, a goose flew from nowhere and chased them away, forc­ing them to aban­don their food on the grass. They believed me. The geese are terrifying. 

The geese are also fierce defend­ers of their off­spring, they don’t take shit from humans, and they embody loy­al­ty at the expense of their own safe­ty. I have nev­er tried to kill some­one for step­ping too close to some­one that I loved. I’m not a goose, sure, but I envy their ded­i­ca­tion. The time I’ve spent delib­er­at­ing the most com­pas­sion­ate way to send a breakup text could be time spent fight­ing or swim­ming or fly­ing around. When I’m not sure how to say no to anoth­er oblig­a­tion, or how to tell my fam­i­ly and friends that I love them with goose-like feroc­i­ty. I want to be more of an Egypt­ian goose, lung­ing at the poten­tial dan­gers of the world. I want to forego analy­sis and take up rabid vengeance against the hint of a threat. 

This after­noon I passed a fam­i­ly of Egypt­ian geese. The par­ents flanked a dozen goslings. They hatched about the same time as the mus­covy ducks, but the duck­lings dis­ap­peared a few weeks ago and now their moth­ers and fathers roam the pond’s perime­ter as aim­less and stu­pid as a per­son with­out pas­sion. The moth­er deliv­ered warn­ing honks, and always, since that fate­ful day years ago, I kept my dis­tance. I whis­pered, “it’s okay, mama. I’m just walk­ing past.” She relented. 

I imag­ine that all these geese will grow large and vicious as their keep­ers. They’ll mate and nest. They’ll pre­serve life because it is an inher­ent good to be here, doing what­ev­er it is we do in the time we have. 

7. Great Blue Heron

I call it the GBH. The acronym is eas­i­er and less weighty. At the Morika­mi Gar­dens near Del­ray Beach, a land­scape of tra­di­tion­al Japan­ese gar­dens sur­round­ing a lake, GBH’s haunt the water’s edge with calm precision. 

I once dat­ed a woman from Mex­i­co who liked to go on adven­tures. I was in a self-imposed quar­an­tine funk, but she grant­ed me com­pas­sion and kept her wan­der­lust sim­ple. We took day trips to not-too-far-off parts of Flori­da, but most­ly we played video games and ate too quick­ly. Towards autumn, which here means the harsh­est part of hur­ri­cane sea­son, we went to the Morika­mi Gardens.

Masks up, we daw­dled the lake. Small gators and soft­shell tur­tles sur­faced and skimmed the water. I tried to impress my date with a mid­dling knowl­edge of Flori­da wildlife and flo­ra. It took me four years to remem­ber what a roy­al poin­ciana looks like, but now that I know, you bet­ter believe I’m going to point that shit out. 

We sat on a con­crete bench while she tried to con­vince me that Bill Gates was a “good bil­lion­aire” and I was unable to acqui­esce, when a great blue heron, slicked-back mohawk and legs like stalks of young palm, pierced the shal­lows. Its sur­gi­cal beak hov­ered three inch­es above the water. How still is this still­ness? How encap­su­lat­ing is this moment before the inevitable strike? And it was done: in like a pin through skin, then out. A min­now flexed for a sec­ond before falling down the GBH’s curled neck. 

I said, “That’s how I want to be.”

“Like the bird?” 

“The GBH. That’s what I want to be like.” I paused, and she wait­ed in the silence, sure that I’d keep talk­ing, because I would. This is how I am with silence. “That singular…focus. I want to be still and qui­et and strike with accu­ra­cy.” I didn’t, and still don’t, know what I am strik­ing. Per­haps that’s the point.

“I think you can do that. You already do, maybe, with your poet­ry,” she encour­aged, because she was kind.

“I’m too dis­tract­ed. I’m every­where at the same time. I’d nev­er catch a min­now.” We stood and walked the grounds, but the GBH stayed exact­ly where it caught the fish. Great blue herons make a day, and a life, of the catch, kill, eat. The fish and frogs, the anoles and snakes, must feel grate­ful to slide down the throat of such a grace­ful murderer. 

Great blue herons can kill peo­ple. They’re pow­er­ful enough to punch a hole through the soft parts, and some of the hard parts, of the human body. They don’t want to, but it is pos­si­ble. GBH’s are big birds, great even, which becomes quite notice­able the clos­er you stand to them. They don’t often stand straight up because they’re busy lurk­ing, bend­ing their beaks over glassy shal­lows, or curl­ing their necks inward and flap­ping off into the sky. 

I bought an inflat­able standup pad­dle­board about a month ago. I resist­ed ever try­ing it out, because for some rea­son I resist the things peo­ple fre­quent­ly tell me I will enjoy. For years, Florid­i­ans old and new have said, “You would LOVE standup pad­dle board­ing.” I replied vague­ly with “oh I’ll have to give it a shot.” I didn’t “give it a shot” for four years, then I tried it and, of course, loved it. I rent­ed a board with some vis­it­ing friends, and we launched over the intra­coastal into the man­grove for­est around West Lake Park. 

Man­groves affect me deeply. Their root struc­tures, which sprawl out into the water like witchy fin­gers, bring me shiv­ers and tears. The fid­dler crabs that crawl and fall from their branch­es make a pleas­ant plop sound in the mud and inch-deep water. I stare into man­grove forests and imme­di­ate­ly for­get that I’m human, and that I’m some­times anx­ious or sad. Hon­est­ly, I hope I can be buried in a man­grove and grow into their city of inter­con­nect­ed roots. If you’re read­ing this, please ensure that I’m buried in a man­grove for­est. Thank you.

Pad­dle board­ing in the man­groves shot me back to the time before. I skat­ed along the sur­face, star­ing down schools of needle­fish. The man­groves rus­tled and popped with all the bizarre life they housed. I knew that, unfor­tu­nate­ly, every­one was right. I do LOVE stand up pad­dle boarding. 

So I got this cheap inflat­able one. Stor­ing a real pad­dle­board in my one-bed­room con­do wasn’t an option, so I fig­ured this would do, and it does. It real­ly does. Just today, actu­al­ly, as I was out on the water, sitting/kneeling/lying/standing on the board, a great blue heron took off down the same man­grove trail as me. It curved out, past West Lake, towards fish or some­thing else easy to eat. I gasped. Alone, out on the water with no one to impress, I near­ly choked from the grace of it. 

8. Sand­piper 

These sweet lit­tle palm-sized sweet­ies skit­ter around the beach like the wind-up toys you’d find at the bot­tom of a Hap­py Meal. Waves rush in, they sprint away, twig-legs kick­ing up infin­i­tes­i­mal streams of wet sand. Waves roll out, they move for­ward, pick at sand fleas until the water forces them five feet west. All morn­ing they do this. Up and down from Hol­ly­wood to Hal­lan­dale. Down and up from Dania to Fort Laud­erdale. They pass by nude bathers at Haulover, in the shad­ows of pen­du­lous penis­es and breasts. They thread the nee­dle of drunk tourists on South Beach, weav­ing between legs and around sunned carcasses. 

Sand­pipers live for ten years. Ten long, adren­a­line-soaked years of flee­ing from water and big­ger birds, from infec­tions and threats of star­va­tion and habi­tat destruc­tion. I only see them when they’re in front of me at the beach, back-and-forth, back-and-forth, cute as any­thing in this world. I’ve nev­er seen their tiny feet dan­gling from a gull’s mouth. There’s so much life we don’t see: move­ment between the jubi­la­tion, the jour­ney from suf­fer­ing to joy to con­tent­ment or wor­ry. Ten years of this, or eighty, or forty-six, or five. 

9. Amer­i­can White Ibis

I can’t deny this: I have anti-ibis bias. 

10. Harpy Eagle

The harpy eagle looks like it wants to fuck­ing kill you. It does. It could. Obvi­ous­ly, harpy eagles do not live in Florida’s wild, though I wish they did. I wish we had more sto­ries and videos of harpy eagles snatch­ing ado­les­cent alli­ga­tors from the swamp and fly­ing off into the hor­ri­fy­ing distance. 

Harpy eagles are native to Cen­tral and South Amer­i­ca. They eat sloths and mon­keys, they’re pre­pos­ter­ous­ly large and pow­er­ful. Their talon grip has more strength than a rottweiler’s jaw. 

Zoo Mia­mi hous­es sev­er­al harpy eagles as part of its Harpy Eagle Project, in con­junc­tion with the Pana­man­ian Gov­ern­ment: the harpy is Panama’s nation­al bird. I don’t think birds should be pit­ted against each oth­er in a bat­tle royale to decide the king of all birds, but I will put my mon­ey on the harpy to van­quish the bald eagle of The Unit­ed States, a less­er eagle by near­ly every met­ric except for recognizability. 

Although I have mixed feel­ings about zoos, espe­cial­ly those that house our great ape cousins, it’s dif­fi­cult to ignore the Siren song (yes, a bril­liant allu­sion to harpies) of see­ing my favorite ani­mals over the course of one walk­a­ble dis­tance. Two years ago, I took a for­mer lover (does that sound pre­ten­tious!?) to Zoo Mia­mi on a harpy eagle mis­sion. I had recent­ly become obsessed with them and their night­mar­ish design. Some things in nature high­light God’s love (see: mock­ing­bird), while oth­ers illus­trate God’s infi­nite vio­lence. Both are crit­i­cal to bal­ance, as vio­lence begets beau­ty (see: the Big Bang), and the harpy eagle is the last stop on the vio­lence-to-beau­ty high­way. I want a harpy eagle tat­too. I watch videos of their scythe beaks pick­ing mon­key flesh to bone. 

We passed by old favorites: the two kind-eyed sil­ver­back low­land goril­las, the howler mon­keys, Cuban croc­o­dile, the giraffes who eat let­tuce from your hands, the orang­utan named Man­go who cov­ers him­self with card­board to block the sun. The harpy eagle enclo­sure is an immer­sive, mas­sive fenced-in cage. Vis­i­tors walk through it, and the harpies are free to fly or walk above and around us gawk­ing, clothed apes. 

Two harpies, one male and one female, stood direct­ly over the walk­way, talons wrapped around the chain, so close I could have test­ed their sharp­ness. They smelled how I wished they would smell: rot­ten meat, nitroge­nous fer­til­iz­er, sharp and fetid and dis­tinct. We paused there, beneath them, as they are our mas­ters, if not in this life then the next. We repeat­ed “oh my God” as the oth­er vis­i­tors glanced up, almost bored, and walked on. The male harpy shit through the fence.

We don’t deserve to look at harpy eagles with­out fear of death. Rev­er­ence is joy­ous and terrifying. 

11. Anhin­ga 

Anhin­gas flex on every­body, all day, every day. They stand in the sun, push their wings out like gold­en era body­builders, and pose. If you aren’t famil­iar with anhin­gas, your imme­di­ate reac­tion might be, “What the fuck is wrong with that bird?” It’s rea­son­able to think that. They hold the pose for hours. They look stuck, as if their wings locked into place and they’re strug­gling to be free of a mys­te­ri­ous rig­or mor­tis. If a human flex­es their bicep for more than fif­teen sec­onds, there’s a prob­lem. We apply that same log­ic to anhingas.

Of course, anhin­gas aren’t flex­ing, since they are (most like­ly) inca­pable of com­pre­hend­ing the desire to flex, and they don’t have biceps. Anhin­gas hold a bent-wing tableau to dry their feath­ers after div­ing for food. Unlike oth­er water­birds, anhin­gas don’t pos­sess the gland respon­si­ble for pro­duc­ing oil to water­proof feath­ers, so they must air dry in this curi­ous and ridicu­lous fash­ion. Anhin­gas dive and swim like aquat­ic nat­u­rals; from a dis­tance, their heads resem­ble snakes or slith­er­ing riv­er mon­sters ris­ing from the sur­face. After min­nows sate their imme­di­ate caloric needs (God, bless the min­now for feed­ing every­thing), anhin­gas find the sun, spread, and hold, some­times mak­ing eye con­tact with pass­ing humans. Such an unabashed­ly proud bird, the anhinga.

I’ve hat­ed, or feared, my body since I can remem­ber. There wasn’t a par­tic­u­lar incit­ing inci­dent. There were real­iza­tions, com­par­isons, con­ver­sa­tions, but hon­est­ly, for a thing that occu­pies so much brain space, I can’t pin­point a moment. It has fol­lowed me for decades, this lin­ger­ing dis­con­tent, some­times bor­der­ing on pan­ic. I was a chub­by kid from ten to about fif­teen, when I shed twen­ty-five pounds for wrestling sea­son and devel­oped a social­ly accept­able pat­tern of dis­or­dered eat­ing and body dys­mor­phia. The thing is, as a fat­ter kid, I was out­ward­ly jovial. I leaned into the role of comedic big guy, and there were won­der­ful exam­ples: Far­ley, Belushi, Jack Black, John Can­dy. There was some­thing about trans­form­ing chub into charm. I learned tim­ing and sight gags, like putting on too-small clothes and show­ing the right amount of bel­ly. I also learned that it was fun­ny when I over-ate or drank twelve sodas and got sick, because there I was, act­ing how I was gonna act.

I learned how to secret­ly hate my body, to com­pare it to oth­er kids’. Often I’d stand in front of the mir­ror, shirt­less, and visu­al­ize a hot knife cut­ting away all the excess parts of myself. This brought plea­sure, an imag­ined min­i­miz­ing of all that too-much­ness I lugged around. At the same time, I want­ed to look like the heav­i­ly-mus­cled dudes I saw on Mon­day Night Raw: Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, Kane. They flexed and fought, lift­ed weights, bul­lied or stood up to bul­lies.  To tear my shirt off and flex in front of crowds of peo­ple was a deca­dence I thought impos­si­ble. So much of it I couldn’t under­stand, specif­i­cal­ly how could some­one love their skin enough to do that? 

All of my friends on the wrestling team devel­oped dis­or­dered eat­ing pat­terns and body image issues, though we wouldn’t ever describe our rela­tion­ships to flesh and food that way, and I remain one of the only peo­ple who will. It wasn’t the fault of any­one. Yes, there were adults who praised our grit and those who dis­cour­aged it, but ulti­mate­ly we were par­tic­i­pat­ing in a cycle of mas­culin­i­ty that asks boys to leave parts of them­selves behind. In my case, for a long time, I left behind what­ev­er joy I once extract­ed from sim­ple meals and look­ing in the mir­ror. I left behind the anhin­ga-plea­sure of flex­ing like The Ulti­mate War­rior after step­ping out of the town pool, slick with chlo­rine and lotion. 

12. Mus­covy ducks

For a few months, I dat­ed a woman who lived in Flori­da most of her life. She was a social­ist, and she had recent­ly giv­en up on fish­ing because she want­ed to avoid con­sum­ing flesh of any kind. One night, after we’d eat­en Indi­an food and talked about Flori­da pol­i­tics, we stopped by a pond near her apart­ment where she used to fish. All around us, the red wart-faced mus­covy ducks wad­dled and shat and car­ried about their business.

“They’re not even ducks,” she said. “They’re water­fowl. I hate them.” 

I hadn’t heard such vit­ri­ol from her, and I was fas­ci­nat­ed at its root cause: this dumb lit­tle duck that camps out at every pud­dle and pond in South Flori­da. They’re all over cam­pus. They don’t give me trou­ble; they part ways when I walk past. They live in Wal­mart park­ing lots where their adorable duck­lings sit beneath truck tires and die in vast num­bers. Peo­ple buy loaves of bread just to feed them. 

She didn’t quite explain why she hat­ed them, oth­er than that they’re inva­sive and they make a mess of things. Fair enough, I assumed, though I found it a bit harsh. It’s hyp­o­crit­i­cal for a human to call any species inva­sive, as we are the cause of so much inva­sive species migra­tion, and we are, of course, inva­sive to many places. Mus­covy ducks are native to Cen­tral and South Amer­i­ca, but they’ve spread north across the US. They’re a stur­dy duck, hulk­ing com­pared to the gracile mal­lards I grew up with, who only stayed for sum­mer and left before the freeze. 

She went on to detail the snake­head fish, an inva­sive species capa­ble of liv­ing out of water for sev­er­al hours. They’re poi­so­nous and can even kill humans if they grow large enough, which they some­times do.

I thought of the igua­nas, per­haps the most promi­nent of the inva­sive non-human ani­mals in Flori­da, and how much I love them. Every one of my breaks over the past school year was spent peep­ing the igua­nas, some­times chas­ing them into the water, but most­ly observ­ing. As a kid, I obsessed over rep­tiles and amphib­ians. The only pets my par­ents let me have were fire-bel­lied toads and a skink that I, bor­ing­ly, named Spike. I col­lect­ed rub­ber snakes, lizards, and frogs. Late spring and sum­mer days were con­sumed by frog and sala­man­der catch­es in the creeks and ponds of my neigh­bor­hood. I begged my mom to stop the car when­ev­er we passed a pond. If you had told me that I would one day live in a place with anoles crawl­ing the sides of build­ings and giant igua­nas sprint­ing through lawns, I would have called you a god­damn dream­er and a liar. That place would be too much like heav­en, and I called myself an athe­ist before I turned twelve.

I can’t imag­ine what it’s like to grow up here. Mil­lions of peo­ple can, but I nev­er will. Alli­ga­tors won’t be mun­dane or a nui­sance to me, and mus­covy ducks will always be Bizarro World ver­sions of the mal­lards and wood ducks of my youth. With the excep­tion of a few things, inva­sion is the norm for South Flori­da. If you were born here, you might feel a cer­tain claim to this land, even if your par­ents or grand­par­ents were once invaders. Unless your ances­tors fought on the right side of the Semi­nole Wars, you are inva­sive. You might look at the intro­duced species and long for the ease of your child­hood, those reck­less sum­mer storms and uncrowd­ed beach­es, and feel as if you’re chok­ing in an embrace with this ecosys­tem. You are; we all are. The thing about inva­sive species is that they upset a habi­tat, change the geog­ra­phy, kill off native species, but they don’t pre­serve any­thing except the rede­fined land­scape they’ve cre­at­ed. The Bud­dhist in me is hor­ri­fied and absolute­ly sure of this.

Mus­covy ducks and snake­head fish, humans and igua­nas, fuck things up. We (because we invaders are all kin) eat up, build on, and shit over all the before-world, and that is awful. But I am calmed by what will come after us. I am con­vinced the alli­ga­tors will remain, old sur­vivors, and the mock­ing­birds, and great blue herons. The pel­i­cans will go on, too, scoop­ing fish in their buck­et throats. Per­haps the harpies will bust free from their cages and build night­mare nests atop aban­doned sky­scrap­ers. Over time, this move­ment and more migra­tions, extinc­tions and evo­lu­tions, will change our lit­tle piece of par­adise entire­ly. We wouldn’t even rec­og­nize it, so sub­merged and wild it’ll be. A flock of roseate spoon­bills will fish from my aban­doned bal­cony. The roost­er will be long dead, too, and maybe we can final­ly get some sleep. 

From the writer

 

:: Account ::

I became an ama­teur bird­er after mov­ing to South Flori­da from New Eng­land in 2016. The vari­ety of birds is astound­ing here, and they always make won­der­ful fod­der for writ­ing and med­i­ta­tion. As we get old­er, some of us become cranky and fear­ful, and some of us become bird­ers. The oft-cit­ed clich­es are the best things to write about (birds, love, loss, flow­ers), and I’m com­fort­able don­ning the scar­let let­ter C for my bird obsession.

Orig­i­nal­ly com­posed in 2021, this essay lives as a con­ver­sa­tion with myself about inva­sive species’ nich­es in South Flori­da. I was anx­ious about the polit­i­cal and eco­log­i­cal state of my com­mu­ni­ty and the world at large (I am still anx­ious about these things). In the haze of quar­an­tine and rela­tion­ship woes and Florida’s spe­cif­ic polit­i­cal insan­i­ty, I retreat­ed to learn­ing more about birds for solace. Around this time, a neigh­bor brought a roost­er onto my block. For months straight, I woke at 4:30 to its hor­ri­ble crow­ing. I obsessed over the lack of sol­i­dar­i­ty my neigh­bors had to wake thou­sands of peo­ple every morn­ing for some vague notion that a roost­er might enhance their lives. I con­sid­ered my oth­er com­mon Flori­da bird friends, both inva­sive, migra­to­ry, and endem­ic to the area, and how to cat­e­go­rize my rela­tion­ship to them.

Bren­dan Walsh has lived, taught, and lift­ed weights in South Korea, Laos, New Eng­land, and South Flori­da. He is the author of sev­en col­lec­tions of poet­ry, includ­ing con­cus­sion frag­ment, win­ner of the 2022 Flori­da Book Award Gold Medal. His lat­est col­lec­tion, novem­ber ninth: poems writ­ten when i was sup­posed to be work­ing from home, was pub­lished by Dip­i­ty Press in Fall 2024. He is co-host of the Fat Guy, Jacked Guy pod­cast with Stef Rubi­no, and you can find him online at brendanwalshpoetry.com.