This was after wed already stopped for coffee.
I asked for a sip and took the can away from him.
I told him he was hyper enough already.
He pulled another can out of his pocket and popped the tab.
We were prepared to spend the morning deep in the woods, but W.G.
Jones State Forest caught us by surprise.
It really didnt seem all that remote: the forest was bordered by urban sprawl.
We turned off the highway into a dirt parking lot and hopped out of the car.
It felt like wed just arrived at a farm.
There was a large, ramshackle building with aluminum siding.
Two men stood leaning against a tractor in work overalls.
A pine warbler flew over our heads and landed on a branch over the trail in front of us.
I pulled out my binoculars to get a closer look.
I felt a tap on my shoulder.
He pointed up
Delta Airbus, he said.
The plane was coming in to land.
Thanks, John, I said.
We walked farther in.
There was a buzzing in my ears.
I slapped myself in the face.
There were other sounds, too.
We could hear the roar of the highway in the distance.
We could see rows of houses through the trees.
A jackhammer started up literally, a jackhammer and police sirens wailed by.
We crept along the trail, binoculars at the ready, stopping at the slightest sound.
Joggers and elderly couples from the neighborhood said good morning as they passed by.
Id had my binoculars pressed to my face for so long that I was beginning to go cross-eyed.
And my neck was getting stiff from looking up into the canopy.
Walter looked at his watch.
Lets keep looking for another hour or so.
Well find this woodpecker.
Out in front of us, John was singing an Irish ballad, his voice echoing through the woods.
He was clearly bored out of his mind.
Walter looked at me and rolled his eyes.
John was going to scare away all the birds.
I caught up to John and told him to quiet down.
He smiled, shrugged, and stopped singing.
He pointed at a tree just off the trail.
What kind of bird is that?
I looked to where he was pointing.
Just a mockingbird, I said.
Not that one, he said.
Thatone, right there.
Its a mockingbird, John.
The same kind we have back in Los Angeles.
It moved around the limb, grappling onto the bark with its clawed feet.
Thats the bird I meant, John said, clearly full of shit.
Three other woodpeckers swooped down into the tree to join the first one.
Those birds too, he said.
Those are the ones I meant.
With his loud, stomping boots and his half-remembered drinking songs, John had accidentally found the woodpecker.
FromOdd Birdsby Ian Harding.
Copyright 2017 by the author and reprinted by permission of St. Martins Press.
