The whole congregation judges him, the new guy. They say he’s cocky—hardy har the irony, of course, being that he, like everyone else here, lacks external genitalia—and they have a million more complaints about him, too, starting with each and every feather on his body. Count them up, and maybe it’s not a full million, but who has the patience to go counting feathers?
Birds, unlike humans, are not racist, but that doesn’t delete discrimination.
Birds, unlike humans, don’t vote, but they like to keep up with the current.
Like when the new guy first appeared, the reddish egret asked if he was heading to a tea party.
And when the new guy next appeared, a black-bellied plover made a joke about his being the wrong wing. The waders gave him a polite chuckle, just as a gesture of solidarity. They got the joke, they did; it just wasn’t funny. He’s funnier when he’s got on his non-breeding suit, but it’s early July: his belly is inky and his humor falls shorter and shorter with every try.
And when the new guy next appeared, a curlew pointed to the coat room, wouldn’t want to muddy his patriotism. This made the flock erupt, laughing so hard they were gulping.
Still, the new guy keeps appearing. He knows how this goes. It’s not like he fledged yesterday. Shore birds are snide—they’re assholes, really—but this mockery will abate. Surely, it will; it must. This won’t go on forever, right?
One morning, while the new guy is off finding breakfast, the birds call emergency congress. lilMostly, it’s petty shit, nothing that would merit punishment, much less banishment, which is the tacit goal. They’ve been strategizing for more than an hour, and the tide pushes deeper into the mud. Grumpiness increases with hunger; dawn has broken to morning, and the breakfast buffet is digging down and down. Their beaks feel parched, aching to thrust into the cool wet sand.
At last, a solitary sandpiper peeps, “Enough, enough. Not a single bird has offered a single reasonable reason, and without just cause, we cannot ask him to—”
Before, the congress had been respectful, reasonable, at least towards one another, but now, suddenly, before the little sandpiper could finish his sentence with all its implications, all the birds squawk at once. It’s an unbearable sound, worse even than a cotillion of terns, a highness of royals in formation. Now, everyone has an idea, and every idea is more desperate than the last. Accusations are thrown about, lies and fairy tales and tales taller than the tallest snowy.
In the midst of all the raucous, the tricolored heron returns, lands right in the middle of the pandemonium—and before his wings can fold back into place, everything stops: the birds, the squabbling, all the fun and games. All the birds turn and stare. The tricolored cranes his neck, looks every shorebird present in the eye. His blinks feel heavy and deep, the nictating membrane slides horizontal and back, but it’s useless. One fat teardrop hits the brackish water, and every bird could hear it burst. And then another one falls. But before a third can pop, the tricolored opens his rufous wings, and the congress of birds watches the white strip of his belly fly east. The sunlight emphasizes first slate, then rust, first cornflower, then ruby: what a marvelous show!
That night, the sky alights with booming rage. The tricolored never returns, but every year on the anniversary of their unkindness, exuberant red, white, and blue siege the air—bursting, hot, a lamentation.
