Rednecks

I went birding with my wife yesterday, and we made the short drive up to a remote area in Coke County, Texas. There are a couple of loops that take you through ghost towns and have extensive rangeland along the road. In most places, there’s not even fences, and this is one of the reasons the birding’s so good — you can walk into the habitat a bit if you see or hear something worth checking up on.

So there we were, walking along the road when a gargantuan white pickup truck drove up and approached up. I expected the worse but hoped for the best. He was a young guy about my age, with a huge cowboy hat and a handle bar mustache.

Me: Good morning!

Him: What are yall doing out here.

[I disliked him immediately.]

Me: Oh, we’re just looking for birds, out enjoying this beautiful day.

[He looks away from us, off towards the horizon. Apparently it was so difficult for him to talk with pot-smoking, tree-hunging hippies that he couln't look us in the eye...]

Him: This is private property out here… Be sure you don’t leave the road.

Me: This is a public road. Thanks for saying hi.

He drove off and I stayed mad for about 10 minutes before enjoying the rest of the glorious morning. It’s not the first time this has happened to me either. A few years ago, out near Delta, Colorado, south of Grand Junction (far southwest corner of Colorado) looking for Sage Sparrow on county roads, I had a guy drive up and share his love for private property rights, only this time with dozens of F words per sentence. He was a much scarier redneck too. Everything from the trailer with a dozen non-working cars that he drove up from, to the multiple guns visible in the car, to the wife that stared at the floorboard the entire time and never made eye contact with us — like a dog that’s been beaten (I’m sure she had) — told us that this guy just wasn’t to be argued with.

I just don’t understand my culture sometimes. We pride ourselves on friendliness, but there are some that clearly extend this friendliness only as far as others are like them. We all sing songs at church extolling the beauty of nature, but those that would actually enjoy it are looked at suspiciously. There is a very strong pioneer sentiment that’s hung around 100 years too long. Nature is something to be distrusted, something to be abused and conquered.

In fairness, not everyone has this problem. We had multiple people wave and say hi that morning. One guy (in another gargantuan white pickup truck) drove up to see what we were doing, but once he found out was very friendly and asked about the birds we’d seen.

All’s well that ends well too. We saw what we came for — some excellent looks at Black-throated Sparrows. (Picture from the web…)

A couple of winter plumaged Dunlin, not too common in west Texas, also made for a nice surprise at the end of the day.