Sitting in a coffee house is nothing new for me. Today I’m at CC’s, on Coursey Blvd., in Baton Rouge. It’s rained more here in the last two weeks than it rained all of September in Halifax; and they set a record then. It’s really flat here, almost no gradient so with nowhere to go, the streams and bayous just fill up and run over. But I got to spend some time on the beach, over on the Florida/Alabama coast. Cloudy or not, a warm day on the beach is better than any rainy day in a coffee shop.
It doesn’t matter if it’s a thousand black birds, rising up in close formation over a grain field or a lone pelican, riding an updraft like a surfer on an endless wave; they all get my attention. I’ve loved birds and wings for as long as I can remember. They’re all special but the ones that left me open mouthed and wide eyed were the ones that soar. They find columns of up-rushing air and hover there like an acrobats, hand standing on top of a flag pole. Most times, they are either too high or far away to see much. But on the beach they are feeding and it brings them down, suspended over the shallows, maybe just a few yards away and low enough to see feathers spread like fingers, flutter in the wind.
It was windy; gulls would find a good spot and hang suspended there for a while, then float off to one side, turn back into the wind and take off like a kite. The sweet spot wouldn’t stay vacant for long: like a game of musical chairs, they took turns there. I watched a gull arc up in a climbing loop and streak away. Looking back to see who would take its place, I was amazed to see a big, heavy bodied bird; too big to be a gull. No mystery, just a surprise: pelicans are unmistakable. This one did a little fan dance there that stretched from 10 to 20, to 30 seconds; enough time for me to hatch the idea, reach around for my camera and check its settings, take time to steady myself and frame the image. Shutter-click and pelican rotated its wings just enough to act like sails and rebound up and away as if on a long stretched rubber band. Saints have visions, Prophets have revelations and Moses had his burning bush. I have close encounters with birds; wouldn’t want it any other way.
