Delusional!  On my way to favorite places on the river.  Fourth of July.  National holiday.  I am totally delusional.  Living in America comes on the radio.  James Brown’s old anthem might be a celebration.  Or maybe the station is playing it for irony in these times of troubles?  Under another heat dome.  Sunrise temperature at 95.  The river has water.  And birds, sometimes.  Water attracts people.  Sometimes Bald Eagles perch at this first spot, on the bluffs.  River Otters sometimes cavort near the beach.  Lot filling up already.  Whites and browns.  Hustling with huge portable shade tents toward the water.  Blacks don’t do water?  Blacks don’t do birds!

I know two Black birders, but one moved to Arkansas.  No eagles today.  The year was 1984.  James Brown revitalized his career with his anthem.  And we had to leave Arkansas.  Terry Edwards (I’m naming names here) refused to renew my work contract.  Biracial son.  Big ‘fro.  We were othered.  Was James Brown recording in irony?  There should be a Great Blue Heron stalking the reeds.  SUPs are already on the water.  Otters don’t do chaos.  I don’t do water, but I’ve done chest waders for birds.  Blacks don’t do paddle boards.  Yes, I’m delusional.  If I leave now and hurry downstream maybe I can beat this mass of American humanity to my next spot.

Delusional!  Lots of people already here too.  Boards and boats every few minutes.  I’ve seen Peregrine copulation on these cliffs.  Boaters stop on the beach below to play.  Canonballing from the ledge where Black Phoebes have finished nesting.  Can Black Phoebes experience thankfulness?  A male cardinal calls from the brush, “Pretty, pretty.”  An overweight and shirtless white male with a tramp stamp floats by.  Not pretty!  Evidence of human copulation in the bushes where I glass a Bell’s Vireo.  No tubers—yet.  Do Blacks do tubes?  I’ve never seen Blacks on the water.  Song Sparrows chase along the edges where vegetation interrupts sand and river rocks.

Warming up?  You think!  Damselflies flit from branch to branch over discarded beer cans.  Must be 100 now.  Ronnie Reed (I’m naming names here) is Black.  Arguably the best, most active birder in metro Phoenix.  Does Ronnie ever bird this river?  Last spring I had a Spotted Sandpiper foraging next to a plastic water bottle.  Black cardinals, Phainopeplas, already gone, migrated up country for their second nesting.  Why does sound carry so well over water?  As his family drifts by in a large raft, an eight year old declares he has “big balls like daddy.”  It’s been eight years since I saw the Peregrines.

Still delusional, I drive farther downstream.  A popular take out, hoards of American celebrants already taking out, some just putting in.  My watch says 8:30am.  The car thermometer says 105.  Rafts of rubber rafts, inflating and deflating.  Boat-tailed Grackles and Red-winged Blackbirds pick around overflowing trash barrels.  The infamous wild horses are here.  Wild indeed!  Feral escapees from ranches and the reservation.  They pant in the shade of the Mesquite bosque, parting before me as I walk through copious piles of their droppings on a narrow track to the water.

Kevin Loughlin (I’m naming names here) has forever sullied the reputation of his Wildside Nature Tours with a photo trip to shoot these so-called “wild” horses.  The horse nuts lobby for preservation of these four-legged cockroaches stripping our desert.  They should be shot.  The horses, not the horse nuts.  Or . . . .  A Cooper’s hawk bathed in these shallows last winter.  No Coops today.  Raptors don’t do national holidays?  Still no tubers, but soon they’ll be bank to bank.  Tubers don’t get up early.  Resident Bald Eagles thankfully through with nesting.  Can Bald Eagles experience thankfulness?

One more stop.  My delusion grows as the sun and temperatures rise.  116 predicted.  Last take out above the dam.  Semi-famous migrant trap.  Extensive Mesquite bosque.  Lucy’s Warblers nest here.  My mentor, Pat Beall (I’m naming names here), and I once had a September Painted Bunting down the fisherman’s trail.  Blacks fish.  Why don’t Blacks do birds?  It’s fishing with binoculars.  Or a camera.  I use my camera for the first time today, a picture of the ten car queue that waits behind me as a brown family unties a large raft from the bed of their pick-up parked in the middle of the road.  Brown-headed Cowbirds pick at the trash cans here.

The river runs full this time of year.  Full of many things.  Dead of winter is my time here.  Dead quiet at sunrise on a weekday.  White Pelicans above the dam.  Exposed gravel bars for foraging Killdeer and sandpipers.  Mergies plying the shallows.  Kingfishers rattling.  An occasional Coyote or Bobcat drinking.  No tubers in winter.  No tubers today—yet.  If I go home right now, I won’t see any.  I leave.  Yet another station is playing James Brown’s holiday anthem.  I have seen few birds.  I have seen the river at its worst.  At its most vulnerable.  What was I thinking coming to this place on this day.  Do rhetorical questions need a question mark?  I feel the unintended irony emanating from the speaker.