These are not the birds you're looking for.

The redtails wheeling above me are taunting me with their Hollywood cries. "We're large raptors too!" they seem to say. Sorry, I reply. You're not the birds I'm looking for. Their shadows pass over me, race along the ground in front of me. Theirs or the turkey vultures'. I've been scanning the canyon below me for hours, with nothing but signals taken with my 6" antenna to go on, confirming at the very least that the birds I am looking for are here. Now I don't even have that. You'd think that for a bird that big and black it would be hard for them to do anything inconspicuously. However, in the harsh glare of the sun on the pitted rocks opposite, everything is transformed into a condor. Your best bet is to wait for the light to change, to reveal the birds for what they really are, like flipping the light switch in a monster-filled room.

I wonder (hope) my not seeing the pair is an indication that they've finally settled down, chosen a nest, laid an egg. I've never had this much trouble finding this pair before, which could have been pure dumb luck. But I'd like to think not.

Even the black flies buzzing just in my periphery make me whip my head in the direction of the horizon, seeking out other black shapes against the hazy blue.

It's hot out here. I can't even imagine how uncomfortable summer's going to be, sitting out here in the sun for hours, baking, burning, and all the while with the threat of forest fires hanging over our heads. Those famous SoCal fires. Everything here is buzzing. The flies. The planes overhead. The grasshoppers when they glide from stalk of grass to stalk. The oil machinery on the pads perched on the surrounding mountains. The metallic trills of birds.

* * *

My walkie is beeping at me. Low battery. Low battery. Geez. I got the memo. And oh, no, it isn't like I just put in a new, freshly charged battery in you this morning. Not at all.

Western side-blotched lizard (Uta stansburiana elegans)