by Jan Dunlap
“I said the same thing about that kiskadee costume,” a short and round older lady said to me, patting my arm in a motherly way.
It took a moment or two, but then I recognized her as the straw-hat lady from our morning disaster. I’d had no idea that her hat had been hiding a too-red hair dye job, but I sure couldn’t miss it now.
It was almost fluorescent.
“I’m Poppy Mac,” she introduced herself, “and I heard what you said. You’d think with all the money this club has in its pockets, we could spring for something fresh. But you know these old men, they’ll be darned if they’ll spend two nickels for something new if they can jimmy-rig it out of something old.”
She smoothed a strand of red hair behind her ear.
“Tightwads,” she confided in me. “Bunch of old tightwads. Take my husband, for example. He won’t buy new batteries for his hearing aid because he says that it works most of the time. MOST of the time isn’t good enough, but he won’t replace them until he’s stone deaf.”
Paddy Mac came up beside her and wrapped his arm around his wife’s shoulder. If he’d heard her criticism of his financial habits, he didn’t show any sign of it, or maybe Poppy was correct.
He hadn’t heard a word because his batteries were on the fritz again.
“Ah, I see you’ve met my darlin’,” he said, giving his wife a loud smacking kiss on her wrinkled cheek. “If she had her way, we’d only be slicing up top grade citrus to use on our float instead of the bruised leftovers. Not that anyone can tell the difference when you’ve got ten thousand orange halves covering the sides of a truck, mind you, but for my Poppy, it’s first class all the way or not at all.”
“Oh, get to work,” Poppy said, pushing Paddy back towards the garage. “I’m not seeing any sides of a truck covered with chicken wire, let alone citrus, yet.”
“Don’t be rushing us, darlin’. Haste makes waste,” he reminded her. “We don’t need any accidents in building this float.”
Paddy turned to me and winked. “I spent some time in insurance, and you wouldn’t believe the money that gets poured into accident settlements, including parade claims.”
He toasted me with the beer can in his right hand. “Safety first, Minnesota.”
A giggling Poppy pushed him back to work on the float.
“Bob, you remember Cynnie Scott, don’t you?”
Luce was beside me, gesturing towards the woman with whom she’d been chatting. “We met her yesterday morning at Frontera Audubon.”
I nodded to Cynnie. “Of course,” I said. “But at the time, I had no idea you were involved with this motley crew. I also didn’t know you were a local birding legend,” I added.
Cynnie, a striking woman with a heavy braid of silver hair swinging down her back, laughed. “That’s a polite way of saying I’ve been around a long time. Which I have. Which also means I should know better than to get roped into the annual frenzy of building a float for the Citrus Parade, but here I am.”
She glanced around to see if any of the other MOBsters were nearby, then leaned into me and said, “Luce told me you saw the vultures tonight at Frontera, and that there was a shooting. I hope your friend will be all right.”
Before I could say anything, Cynnie shook her head. “I can’t believe it, but at the same time, I can’t say I’m completely surprised. Tensions have been running awfully high here in the Valley the last few months since the politicos approved the SpaceX installation. Conservation activists are furious, while the economic development people are drooling in anticipation. People are taking sides: conservation or SpaceX.”
She leaned in again and dropped her voice lower.
“Between you and me,” she confided, “I’ve been expecting somebody to start taking pot-shots at the vultures, figuring no one would complain if he killed them, since our legislature seems bent on selling out our natural resources to big business. It only takes one step in that direction to set off a stampede.”
Cynnie’s disgust with her lawmakers was clear, and her words reminded me of what the chief had said about the locally revered birder—that she was the most outspoken bird advocate in the area. In a place like the Lower Rio Grande Valley where birding tourism generated big bucks for the community, I assumed that made Cynnie Scott the darling of all the merchants and businesses who shared in that profitable industry. On the flip side of that community coin, she may have been a thorn in the side of groups that championed causes contrary to her own. Whether it was the preservation of a vulture roost or rerouting a road to conserve breeding areas, the staunch bird lovers I’d met over the years weren’t afraid to take their concerns into public arenas.
To be even more blunt about it, Cynnie Scott may have made serious enemies among local community leaders with her advocacy of birding and birds. It wouldn’t be the first, and certainly not the last, time a birder didn’t flinch at ruffling the feathers of powerful people.
“Where exactly is this SpaceX base going to be built?” Luce asked her. “From what you’re saying, it sounds like it’s more than another economic development that will be impinging on natural habitat. Which is bad enough,” she quickly added, “but I think that, these days, all birders know of at least a few projects in their own areas threatening habitat.”
Luce was voicing my thoughts as well. Birds and economic development were always at odds, it seemed to me. Of course, that made perfect sense since they both wanted use of the same pieces of land (or air space), but for radically different reasons. Developers wanted to use natural resources for human purposes. Birds needed those resources for their survival.
Some people think that activism on the behalf of protecting bird species began in the 1990s with the very public battle over preserving habitat for the Northern Spotted Owl in the face of logging operations in the Northwest of the United States. But the truth is that a concern for birds’ survival surfaced in the last years of the nineteenth century, when the extinction of the Passenger Pigeon and the alarming decline in the population of Whooping Cranes led to a reappraisal of human impact on wildlife populations. In 1900, America’s first conservation legislation was signed into law by President William McKinley. Known as the Lacey Act, it charged the Secretary of the Interior with the responsibility to safeguard game and wild bird populations from commercial exploitation. Over the years, other wildlife conservation legislation was enacted, including the Endangered Species Preservation Act in 1966. Finally, in 1973, President Nixon signed the Endangered Species Act, which continues in force to this day.
That doesn’t mean our national mandate to protect endangered species isn’t challenged, or circumvented, by special interest groups.
Two years ago, a wind turbine project along the shores of Lake Erie sparked national headlines with the confrontation it caused between energy companies and the American Bird Conservancy over bird deaths that resulted from birds flying into turbines. In Minnesota, a proposal for a similar wind energy project was defeated by state conservation activists out of concern for safeguarding Bald and Golden Eagles that nested in the area. From what we’d already heard about the SpaceX project since our lunch at Fat Daddy’s, it appeared to be the lightning rod of the moment for birding issues around this part of Texas.
Cynnie’s expression morphed from disgust to astonishment.
“You don’t know where the spaceport’s going in?” she asked. “I just assumed you did, even if you are new to the area. This disaster has been brewing for a while.”
Luce and I both gave her blank looks.
“We only learned about it earlier today,” I explained. “It’s like a lot of commercial developments—if it’s not directly impacting your part of the country, you don’t hear about it.”
“Well, this one should be making the national news big-time. It’s in Boca Chica Beach,” Cynnie said. “East of Brownsville, near the U.S.-Me
xican border, five miles south of South Padre Island. It’s next to a state park in the Boca Chica subdelta of the Rio Grande.”
Okay, I could see why people might be upset about developing a beach. Proximity to beaches was probably jealously guarded in a hot and dusty state like Texas, but in this particular area of the state, you practically bumped into a state park boundary every time you turned around. The airport in Harlingen, in fact, was about a stone’s throw from Hugh Ramsey Nature Park, which formed part of the Harlingen Arroyo Colorado, one of the nine World Birding Center sites in the Lower Rio Grande Valley. Heck, you could almost bird in Hugh Ramsey from your plane seat while waiting for take-off.
Cynnie must have read the lack of understanding on my face, because her next comment hit me like a knock-out punch.
“It’s on the flyway,” she emphasized. “THE flyway that branches into the Mississippi and Central flyways. If they build a space launch complex on that piece of land, you can bet it’s going to disrupt the migration patterns of hundreds of thousands of birds. That particular beach area is vital to the health of the migratory corridor into North America. We’re talking about over 500 species of birds being impacted.”
Holy crap.
Cynnie looked at my stunned face.
“Now, does that sound like a stupid idea or not?” she asked me.
Again, holy crap.
“How did they get past the Endangered Species Act?” Luce asked. “Or the Migratory Bird Treaty Act? They both charge the federal government with conservation responsibilities mandated by law.”
Whoa. My wife had obviously recovered from her shock faster than I had from mine if she was referencing federal guidelines.
“That’s what we had working for us in Minnesota,” Luce continued. “The Treaty Act helped us put the heat on the Vikings football organization to modify the construction of their new stadium. Their original design called for about two football fields’ worth of glass, which is really attractive to people, but deadly for all the birds that fly right into the glass because they don’t realize it’s there. On top of that, the stadium isn’t far from where the Mississippi River cuts through downtown Minneapolis, which meant all that glass would be a deadly hazard for birds migrating along the flyway.”
Oh yes.
The Vikings.
Their defense of the stadium project had brought new meaning to the word “oblivious.” After the initial outcry from bird lovers about the non-friendly bird design went nowhere, the local city councils took up the cause. They passed resolutions calling for bird-safe glass to be used, only to be equally ignored by the Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority, the group established by the state legislature to oversee the construction and operation of the new stadium.
(And did I mention that the stadium was being built with almost a half billion of taxpayer dollars? Too bad we, the taxpayers, can’t cough up that kind of money for the purchase of more state nature preserves, but I guess that’s a bone that I—and my fellow conservation advocates—will just have to keep gnawing on.)
Anyway, birders’ protests got louder, a citizens’ group was formed, the media jumped in, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act was invoked, the Minnesota Legal Defense Fund for Migratory Birds was organized, until finally, the sports authority began working with 3M to develop a product to use on the glass to make it bird-safe.
Cynnie nodded. “I followed that fight. We’ve got the same problem here, basically, but even worse. We’ve got two flyways in jeopardy, and building glass is the tip of the iceberg. We’re looking at a huge building project that’ll reconfigure the landscape, deafening spacecraft launches that’ll drive away species, and masses of people in what is currently one of the most important birding sites in the western hemisphere. ”
“But the environmental guidelines,” I protested. “Even the Federal Aviation Administration has to comply. How can SpaceX get the approval to build a commercial spaceport where two major flyways converge?”
“Bureaucracy can be bought,” the naturalist observed, “or at least mollified. The deal is that the FAA completed their review, and gave SpaceX the green light if it took measures to mitigate the environmental damage.”
“Measures?” Luce echoed. “Mitigate? So it’s okay to do some damage, as long as it’s not as bad as it could possibly be?”
For a few moments, all three of us were silent.
“Holy crap,” I finally said out loud.
“My feelings exactly,” Cynnie said. “It’s like every other ecological disaster created by man. As long as it’s not in your backyard, tough luck for the people who do live nearby. It has to get personal before the big shots will do anything about it.”
She smiled grimly. “And that’s my job. I aim to make it personal for everyone.”
For some reason, her smile didn’t leave me all warm and toasty.
“Yo, Minnesota!”
Schooner was standing a few feet away from our glum little group.
“You folks going to nail some grapefruit, or just yak all night?”
“Just bringing them up to speed on our local tragedy-in-the-making,” Cynnie said.
Schooner struck a pose, his hands on his hips and his eyes narrowed. “You saying our float is a mess? I’ll have you know we spent a week of long nights at Roosevelt’s planning this masterpiece of ornithological beauty. And some of those nights we were even sober.”
“Roosevelt’s is a favorite micro-brewery of the birding community around here,” Cynnie informed us. “It’s in McAllen, and the owners are good friends of mine. They usually kick in a donation to our Festival Fund, too. Which they should,” she added, “since our MOB members make liberal contribution to the profit side of the restaurant’s ledger.”
“With reason,” Schooner insisted. He took Luce’s arm and steered her toward the lit garage. “The best sandwiches in town,” he told her.
Cynnie and I followed Luce and her escort into the float construction zone. Once inside, the sound of pounding hammers, shooting nail guns, and shouted instructions filled the air. I walked over to the side wall of the garage where three sketches of the MOB float were pinned to a large corkboard.
The first one showed a side view of the flatbed, with a human-sized Great Kiskadee surrounded by poster-sized photos of other birds common to the Lower Rio Grande Valley. In the drawing, the big bird was waving, presumably to the delighted parade crowds.
That explained the scary giant kiskadee currently draped on the float: some lucky individual was going to wear the creepy costume and be a goodwill ambassador for both Great Kiskadees and the McAllen Older Birders. The one-eyed detail was obviously a nod to the notorious one-eyed kiskadee specimen currently frequenting the area—the same one Luce and I had encountered at Estero Llano after running into Crazy Eddie this morning.
The second drawing of the float depicted what would be a ten-foot-by-ten-foot map representing the convergence of the two flyways that had created the area’s stellar reputation as a world class birding location. It looked like the map would have a base of chicken wire covered in different types of citrus to create the two migration corridors: the Central flyway was going to be a path of oranges, while the Mississippi flyway would be a river of limes. According to the sketch, Texas was going to be a mosaic of lemons, with the nine World Birding Centers marked by stars composed of ruby red grapefruit.
The third sketch showed the front of the truck cab decked out like the head of a Green Jay. What in the world the float builders were going to use for the brilliant sapphire blue of its head, I had no idea; unless some innovative grower in the Valley was about to unveil a new variety of blue citrus, I assumed there was going to be some heavy spray-painting of oranges going on before the float made its public appearance in the parade. Having already observed firsthand at the Alamo Inn that many of the MOBsters regularly indulged their taste for b
eer, I made a mental note to myself to be sure I stood clear of any spray painting that might be scheduled for later lest I ended up on the float myself as a real Texas rarity: a blue Bob White.
A round of hoorays came from the other side of the garage, and I turned from my study of the float sketches to see a grim, but politely smiling, Buzz Davis stepping into the garage from the door that led into the attached house.
The man was tough, I decided. Stoic under pressure. His best friend had been killed this morning, and here he was putting in an appearance with a bunch of birders building a float for a parade. Then I guessed that either Buzz owned the house and the attached garage, or he was on very familiar terms with whoever did, and he was here for the companionship of friends in a very difficult time.
“Let’s hear it for Buzz!” Schooner’s amplified voice thundered in the garage. “Thanks for the use of your high-tech hangar here!”
That answered that question. This was, indeed, Buzz’s property.
And a mighty fine property it is, I thought, looking at the dark green Porsche parked in the far stall of the three-car space. If I remembered correctly from seeing the house when we drove up to the garage, the attached home was both expansive and expensive: a solid brick exterior with plenty of wrought iron fixtures, including open balconies on the upper level that overlooked a fountain that tumbled into a wide basin in the center of the brick-paved driveway.
Just because you washed out of the astronaut program didn’t mean you couldn’t still make a lot of money, I guessed. I wondered briefly what business had brought Buzz Davis his wealth, and when I remembered that Rosalie had said he was a Winter Texan, I realized that meant that Buzz probably had another home someplace else.
I wondered if it was as spectacular as this one.
No wonder Poppy Mac had complained about the decrepit kiskadee costume. If the MOB had this kind of money behind it, they could probably afford to buy any costumes they wanted. Heck, with that kind of money, they could buy all the costumes in the state.