Embracing the Tropical Kingbird Within

“Are you here for the tropical kingbird?” the ranger at Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge asked.

I wasn’t. I had no idea what a tropical kingbird was. It sounded like a new Starburst flavor, but I guessed, from context, that it probably wasn’t. Michael and I had made a last-minute decision to come out to Blackwater after having to cancel a longer trip to Shenandoah, and I hadn’t checked eBird for interesting birds in the area.

We had canceled the trip to Shenandoah because I was still struggling with bronchitis. I had gotten tested, and was sure I didn’t have COVID, and since I was several weeks into the illness, I was also sure I was no longer contagious. However, I still sounded — and felt — pretty rough. A three-plus hour drive into the cold, rainy Shenandoah mountains for a four-day weekend sounded more like a long haul than a vacation. 

Blackwater, however, sounded manageable. It was only about an hour and a half away, and the Chesapeake Bay location was slated to be warmer. 

So, we set off for a one-night stay in Cambridge, MD — the nearest town to Blackwater.

Let me say up front that Cambridge seemed charming and I’d love to spend more time there. In addition to the wildlife refuge, it also is home to the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Visitor Center, the Harriet Tubman Museum, and the Harriet Tubman Byway (which has an audio guide you can download and listen to whether or not you’re driving the byway).

This was probably not the right time for me to visit Cambridge. 

As most of you know, I have autoimmune problems. Earlier this year, I wrote this fairly upbeat essay for Birdability on having lupus (or something quite like lupus) and being a birder.

I stand by the essay, but I also gotta say: sometimes, having autoimmune problems just totally sucks. I scroll through wildlife photography twitter and look at the dawn light reflecting off some flashy duck’s wing feathers and sigh. Birding *seems* like something I should be able to do safely in this pandemic. And of course, like everyone else, I’m restless after almost two years of pandemic life.

Bronchitis is not a new thing for me. I spent a year free of it when I was in full lockdown last year, but in the normal course of things, I tend to pick it up once or sometimes twice a year.

Once it settles in — due in part to those autoimmune problems — it’s a real wrestling match getting it back out again. In all honesty, I could probably run a small asthma/bronchitis/pneumonia pharmacy out of my medicine cabinet for a year without anyone being the wiser. (Which is quite a privilege, I know.)

Strangers don’t know this about me of course — when they meet me like this, all they know is that we’re in a pandemic and I’m coughing. 

When we arrived in Cambridge, Michael and I ate out on the heated patio of a seafood restaurant, but by then I knew I was in trouble, and I had forgotten to bring cough drops. We stopped at a gas station on the way back to the hotel to pick them up.

Even if most of the people in a given town quit wearing masks months ago and the only person wearing a mask besides you is the woman behind the counter and she’s let hers drop down below her nose, there’s still nothing like stopping at a strange gas station late at night to ask for cough drops during a lung-related pandemic to make the record player of life suddenly — vrrrooooop! — scratch backwards. It turns out that it’s one thing to say you don’t care about COVID. It’s another thing entirely to have a potential carrier in your midst.

I started to wonder what rooms I could clear, if I let my cough get really out of hand. All of them, probably. I imagined myself in the Willard Hotel — a beautiful, historic hotel near the White House — emptying room after room with my hacks. I could have any dining room I liked to myself, but no one — I hoped — would serve me.

I decided not to go that route. I treated my cough and slept in the next morning. Instead of the freakishly early start I had hoped for, we hit up a coffee stand (with outdoors seating) at around 10 am. I was feeling a bit better, and the good news was that the Reserve was built along a winding road, with numbered stops (another reason I had chosen this particular getaway). You could see a lot of the Reserve by car, and then get out whenever you wanted a closer look.

First, though, a quick stop at the Visitor’s Center, where the ranger asked, “are you here for the tropical sunbird?”

“Yes,” I said. It was clearly the expected answer.

“Right outside,” she said, beaming. “Just follow all the folks with cameras.”

I walked out the back door, and immediately ran into a herd of birders, all peering intently at the empty branches of a short, bare tree. “It was here a couple of minutes ago,” said one.

“It keeps bouncing around,” said another. “It goes from here, to the solar panels, to seven.”

I nodded, like I knew exactly what the guy was talking about. 

“I was just over at seven!” said someone else. “And of course that’s when he was over here.”

I gathered, then, that seven was a reference to one of the numbered stops along the drive.

Some of the birders had been there since dawn. Some of them had seen the tropical kingbird multiple times, but still wanted more. I tried to surreptitiously look up “tropical kingbird” on my phone so that I might recognize it if it showed up. Apparently, it was bird more common to Middle and Central America who had been blown off course. 

Even so, when he showed up, I had to ask someone if he was really it. He was, and he was beautiful.

Later, along the drive, two lovely birders pointed out this eagles nest. It was too far away for me to get good pictures, but still, it was neat to see.

On the way home, I slept the way a child or a cat sleeps: head thrown back, awkwardly, like I could sleep on a carpet covered in Legos, or on a rough lunar moonscape, it really didn’t matter.

This trip was probably not the best idea I’ve never had. It can be difficult for me to accept my limitations, to temper my ambitions and to keep in mind that, even if I’m not endangering other people, I might worry them.

I imagine the tropical kingbird telling his friends something similar when he gets home, as I hope he does. “Listen man, I mean, I’m not going to tell you they don’t have some delicious insects up there. And the other birds! You gotta see them to believe them. But I’m telling you, it gets cold. You would not believe how cold it gets. Seriously, it’s not worth it, man. You gotta know your limits. You’re a tropical kingbird, man! Embrace it!”

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One interesting bit of animal news: the U.K. government has recognized crabs, octopus, and lobsters as sentient beings. The change was based on London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) scientific research findings on decapod and cephalopod sentience. These animals will now be covered under the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill, but (for the moment) no fishing laws or practices in restaurant kitchens will be changed.

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Finally, I’m delighted to announce that Shenandoah will be publishing an essay of mine about Angry Bob & George, the two elephant inhabitants of a Botswana island whom my Mom and I met while grieving my Dad. I can’t wait for y’all to meet them; the essay should come out in spring.