A Good Day

Like I’ve said, no birder am I. Nonetheless, each Tuesday morning I am at my volunteer post at the Randall Davey Audubon Center in Santa Fe. For two years, I have genuinely liked being here at the top of Upper Canyon Road, where the sights and sounds never cease to please, and the visitors are endlessly interesting. All one needs to bring to this experience is an appreciation of nature and an honest liking of other folks. I meet both of those requirements, in spite of being a bit of a curmudgeon from time to time. More than likely, on any given day at this wildlife sanctuary, you have the opportunity of reaching out to other like-minded people.

I don’t know what it is about today. I realize that virtually every hiking trail in Santa Fe is closed—including the Bear Canyon trail here in our center, the adjoining Nature Conservancy, the trails along the ski basin road, and the list goes on. A much longer list tells the story for Albuquerque. And the story must be the same wherever you go in the land of enchantment, where we have set a record for extreme drought conditions. The gardens here in the center—that typically this time of year would be double or triple fullness and laden with blooms—show evidence of the severe lack of moisture. The blooms are scant, even though a blanket of yellow makes a statement here and there in the garden.

The birds on this day don’t seem to know, however, that we are on hard times. Or maybe that’s what they’re talking about. They are loud, almost unruly. And as I watch the feeders outside of the visitor center, a smile breaks across my face. “Is that a Bullocks’s Oriole,” a visitor asks. “Yes, it is,” I confirm, confident in having learned its identity a couple of weeks ago, thanks to a colorful display in the visitor center and to the white board outside where visitors can list their sightings. Another question about our hummers, and I’m pulling up the Cornell website on my computer so we can confirm the identity of these little guys hungrily going at the feeder attached to one of the windows.

We’re here. Happy, loud voices of young children here for summer camp are carried on the breeze. Locals just looking for an outside respite somewhere—here, as it turns out. Along with the locals today, visitors came from New York, California, Texas. “We’re from Dallas. If you think it’s hot here, it’s 103 in Dallas, 110 with the heat index," related a woman who had surprised her mother with a visit to Santa Fe, especially to visit 10,000 Waves, a Japanese-style spa in the mountains on the way to the ski basin. Not everyone comes through the visitor center, so likely other places outside New Mexico were represented today.

We’re all trying to catch a break. And as the wildfires continue to rage northwest of the city—in spite of the containment that has once again spared Los Alamos—in this place, on this day, we are reminded that joy and delight are still very much alive. A good day it is, yes indeed. And so it is.

A Good Day—Santa Fe, New Mexico (July 5, 2011)

R. Harold Hollis