My wife, Sara, and I were searching for a lost bird — and now we were lost.
Our quest had begun early on Monday morning, July 3. The Bay Area birding community was all aflutter: a Red-headed Woodpecker had been spotted at Lands End in San Francisco. Red-headed Woodpeckers typically are found on the East Coast — and certainly no farther west than Nebraska. Yet this little bird had somehow wandered across the Rockies, all the way to the continent’s western-most edge. Why?
Maybe it was using Apple Maps.
Sara and I were using that app on our phones and watches as we rode our bikes from the Ferry Building to Lands End, where mini-hordes of excited birders had been gathering for days to catch a glimpse of the misdirected critter. We have a love-hate relationship with Apple Maps — and with its cousin Google Maps. It’s not that we long to return to the old days of paper maps. There was that family car trip to Yosemite years ago, way pre-Siri, when we noticed that Mono Lake was on the wrong side of us (or vice-versa, I guess), had to reverse course, and ended up reaching our cabin five hours later than planned. Another time, we were driving from Ithaca to Lake Placid, New York, and kept arriving, over and over, at a town called Homer (what an odyssey!).
While the Maps app has certainly been quite helpful to Sara and me on our extended bike rides through the city, it has also caused us much frustration — especially in its use (overuse, if you ask me) of the phrase “the shared path.” It’s come up a lot when we’ve been in wooded places like Golden Gate Park. The app will say, “Follow the shared path,” or “Turn right onto the shared path.” But there won’t be any path in sight! Or maybe there’s a path, but it’s a super-narrow one more suited to woodchucks than to bicycles — or one that only takes you back to where you started.
Sara and I were somewhere in the Presidio, eager to reach Lands End while we still had a chance to see that Red-headed Woodpecker. We’d been getting along relatively well with the Maps app so far. Then came those dreaded words: “Follow the shared path.” We tried taking the route we thought it was suggesting, but that only led us on a convoluted adventure involving a steep hiking trail, an incredibly tony golf course, and, at one point, an apparent dead end by a stand of tall trees.
Which is when I spotted the hawk. You have to understand something: I almost never am the one who spots a bird, while Sara is so amazingly great at it. And okay, I originally did think it might be an owl. But still! I pointed Sara to the shaded branch of a nearby tree.
Eventually, by ignoring the Maps app’s increasingly desperate pleas regarding shared paths, we made our way to an actual, named street — Clement — and from there it was mere minutes before we arrived at our destination. Sara had heard that the Red-headed Woodpecker was hanging out at the edge of a parking lot. We slowly cruised around, until finally we saw a man who was peering through binoculars. Eureka!
The man told us that he’d seen the errant woodpecker earlier in the day, and was waiting around in hopes of it reappearing. It was down somewhere in the dense greenery that stretched out below, between us and the Bay. More birders were gathered down there. It felt like a communal celebration: WoodpeckerStock.
While Sara set off to join that group, I hung out by the parking lot, keeping one eye on our bikes and the other on the foliage. Meanwhile, I chatted with the guy who’d been there when we arrived — an older fellow, at least in his mid-70s, I’d guess. Peeking out from his cap was hair that had been dyed bright yellow — super-bright, a fashion statement. I had the thought — as I frequently do these days, as I lean into my later years: Wow, old people can be so badass!
He pointed out to me the places where the Red-headed Woodpecker had been hanging out, using the language of one bird-seeker to another: You see that nearly leafless tree over there, with the really thick trunk? Okay, now do you see where that trunk splits off to the left, and then there’s a branch that sticks out at about 11 o’clock? Well, just behind that …
Meanwhile, there was a little bird that actually seemed to want our attention: a Dark-eyed Junco that kept hopping closer and closer to us, showing no fear whatsoever. It’s like it was saying, Why are you so excited about that reclusive woodpecker when I’m right here!
Eventually, possibly with a little Junco sigh, it flew away and perched at the tip of a semi-distant branch.
Soon after that, the yellow-haired guy had to leave. But then three other birders showed up. Two of them turned out to be swashbucklers: They told me that they fly all over the world on a continual mission to add to their already enormous bird-sighting totals. Oh, the many rare species they had seen! They’d just flown in from the Azores and immediately driven to this parking lot in the hope of spotting the Red-headed Woodpecker, which would be a first for both of them. Their cameras and lenses were very impressive!
“Shit!” one of them said. “Camera battery’s dead.” He sprinted back to their car.
The other guy who’d shown up was a sweet fellow who goes by the handle jt_birds on Instagram and jtbirds on YouTube. (I didn’t catch his actual name — I’ll call him “JT.”) He later told me and Sara that he’d just gotten into birding during COVID, and that it had completely changed his life.
Suddenly, as seems to happen a lot in both birding and filmmaking, a long stretch of nothing was followed by a sudden burst of frantic activity. The Red-Headed Woodpecker was back out in the open! (Well, open-ish.) As the two swashbucklers leapt into action, their muscles rippling and cameras clicking, JT dedicated himself to helping me try to see this bird, which he’d already spotted. The problem was — and this is a criticism that I would have to make regarding birds in general — it didn’t just stay in one place! It kept flying around, alighting here and then swooping over to there! The nerve!!
I prepared myself for disappointment — I’ve failed to see so many birds that others have managed to spot! I began pre-consoling myself with the thought that it was all about the process, not the end result, yada yada. Then JT said, “There!!!”
And I saw it, centered in my binoculars: the Red-headed Woodpecker that was perhaps thousands of miles from home.
He looked like a tiny superhero, with a red mask pulled down to his shoulders. His beak seemed to be pointed toward injustice.
Sara had rejoined me by now, having taken a bunch of photos from that lower area.
“I saw it!” I told her. She’d seen it, too. We both beamed.
The swashbuckling guys were thrilled as well. They told us that this sighting was Bird Number 600 for one of them and 608 for the other. Yay.
Meanwhile, the Red-headed Woodpecker had gone back out of our sight for a while.
So many people we love have been suffering lately. But when Sara and I go out birding, it doesn’t feel as if we are escaping their sorrows. Rather, it feels like we’re getting closer to them somehow — coexisting in the glorious vastness that awaits all of us in the end, as we make our way along the shared path.
So, you're having a really big year?
Oh, Josh! I love this! It’s ironic in a way. I was woken up with the tap tap tap of what sounded like a woodpecker. I had one make a hole in the aluminum siding of my condo one year. The tapping was from nearby roof replacement. It’s a beautiful day and will hit 90 later. They started about 7:30. At first, I thought “come on, guys, really it’s only 7:30!” For safety reasons, I’m glad they’re getting an early start.
Loved your tour of my old haunts of The Presidio and Crissy Field. Thank you!