"Late one evening on a Sheffield Audubon Christmas Count in the early 1960s, my father and mother and I sat right here. Nothing was moving, until my mom started playing a recording of Peter Islieb 'spishing' (making squeaking noises by loudly kissing his hand to make the sound of a animal caught by a predator). After a few minutes, robins began falling out of the sky, hundreds, and then thousands, cascading down this hill and landing in the junipers. They fluffed out their feathers and twitched around, trying to find the predator. They kept coming, even as it became dark."
Deborah and I were on a day trip to the backroads between Iraan and Sheffield. We had just seen bluebirds, just like we had the weekend before in the hills west of Fort Chadbourne, and as I had up at Tahoka a few days before. We saw thousands of robins near Fort Chadbourne, in flocks of hundreds heading for a nighttime roost in the colorful red oaks in the mesas, and I had seen hundreds of robins at Tahoka.
"Who was Peter Islieb?" Deborah asked. I answered, "He ended up being one of the leading ornithologists of Alaska. At the time he was dating his future wife who was from Barnhart, and would come to Texas to birdwatch every winter. When I was in my 20s I worked for him on his salmon fishing boat. He was an amazing birder. He sat up on that hill (I pointed in another direction) at daybreak, and watched the birds emerge from the brush to warm up as the sun came up. He used a powerful telescope, and was able to find even the more secretive birds that no one else could find, just because he knew that trick. He died a few years ago."
Deborah and I drove a little further. We stopped near an old stock tank and I started chuckling at a memory. She asked what I was giggling at. "On a cold blustery and snowy day, Ola Dublin Haynes, my father, and I sat here, again in the early 1960s. On the east side of the road three huge old bulls were bellering and pawing dirt. They wrestled and butted heads, all the time making an awful racket. While Ola was counting dozens of birds coming to water at the stock tank, my dad was admiring the bulls. I was busy recording the birds that Ola saw."
I continued, "I have so many memories of this area. My folks started camping at Chandler Ranch in the 1940s. My mom discovered the first green kingfishers on the Pecos in the early 1960s. She was still making discoveries of changing bird populations in the area even in the 1980s. The endangered species, the Black-capped Vireo, established breeding populations near here in the mid or late '80s. At the time, it was thought only about 300 breeding pairs of vireos could be found in the United States, and were disappearing in the Austin area and the eastern Hill Country. She found the first breeding Gray Vireo in the area, too, down at Lancaster Hill, where Dr. Benny Simpson of Texas A&M discovered some rare plants. The herpetologists know this area for its great diversity of reptiles and amphibians, too."
Two black-faced sheep peered at Deborah and I from behind a juniper. Rita, our little female Chocolate Lab, started growling and whining, then hid behind our big male, Teddy. Deborah reached back to calm Rita, who was shivering with fright. Teddy let out a deep-throated bark. I put the vehicle in gear and we rolled on, and Rita came up to the front seat to be held by Deborah.
"You miss Frances, don't you?" Deborah asked. "She was truly a legend in the birdwatching world, wasn't she?" I nodded. A person could not have asked for a better role model in a parent. Frances Williams was the pioneer ornithologist of West Texas, a founding member of the Texas Ornithological Society, a regional editor for Audubon's American Birds, and did the original research on the Cassin's Sparrow. She inspired many people to appreciate the birds of West Texas, including Jenna Welch and her daughter Laura Bush. She mentored Dr. Terry Maxwell of Angelo State University, and Victor Emmanuel, whose ecotourism company became the standard for the industry.
We coasted down into the draw of the headwaters of Live Oak Creek. "Didn't you tell me that you and Frances used to walk from here down to the next crossing during the Christmas Counts?" Again I nodded and said, "Yes'm," and the memory of the scent of brickellia filled my nostrils. The nondescript shrub once was common along the draw, growing in the gravel near the water. With the increase of the taller seepwillow along Live Oak Creek, the shrub is now less common. Brickellia helps lower high blood sugar levels in insulin-resistant (adult-onset, type II) diabetics. Brickellia, known as hamula in curanderismo and available at some supermarkets and most botanicas, has great effects on stimulating fat digestion in the gallbladder. Deborah and I grow it in our yard, and when I brush against it, the memory of the hundreds of hikes that my mom and I took along the rocky watercourses of West Texas hills resonate in my heart.
My mom made her living as the head librarian at the Midland County Library, and because of her the love of literature and birds, she published a monthly naturalist newsletter for 35 years (the Phalarope, which is still being published by the Midland Naturalists).
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