High Island Blues Read Online Free

still seemed strange that in Texas walking was a form of exercise, not a means of getting where you wanted to go. For that you used the car. Reluctantly he returned his attention to Laurie.
    ‘It seems kind of tacky,’ he said. ‘ They’re my friends.’
    ‘Look,’ she said. ‘You got to hustle.’ It was a joke between them, a catch-phrase, but he didn’t laugh.
    ‘Not my friends,’ he said.
    ‘All right,’ she said, losing patience with him. ‘I’ll do the hustling. OK?’
    He shrugged. He knew there was no point in arguing.
    ‘Things aren’t easy right now,’ she said, ‘and you wouldn’t want to lose all this, would you?’ The sweep of her head took in the house, the car, the yard.
    ‘I guess not,’ he said, ‘but I’m not going to be popular.’
    She grinned. ‘You think you’re popular now? You ended up with the girl didn’t you? They’re both as jealous as hell.’
    ‘You like that don’t you?’
    She laughed again. ‘ Sure I like it. You watch. I’ll have them eating out of my hand.’
    He looked at her helplessly but there didn’t seem to be anything else to say. He drove down the I10 past the glittering skyscrapers of Houston and through the flat land towards the coast.
    Rob Earl stood at the front of the bus and spoke to the party. He used a microphone because he knew from experience that at least half of his audience would be hard of hearing. It was that sort of group. He’d led trips to High Island before, usually as part of a Texas package for keen birders, taking in the Big Bend and Laguna Atascosa at the same time. This was a new venture, a gentle introduction to the Upper Texas Coast based for ten days at High Island. There would be no long bus trips and no early starts unless the punters wanted to get up to make the most of the migration on the reserves.
    The tour didn’t come cheap because the accommodation was good, and Mary Ann could charge just about what she liked in the spring. Birders came from all over the world to the peninsula, and there weren’t that many places to stay. The Gulfway Motel was booked from one year to the next. Besides, Oaklands was something special.
    The party was much as he had expected considering the nature of the tour. There were a lot of retired people. Most came from the West Country where the independent travel agent for whom he worked was based. He recognized a few familiar faces, people who had travelled with him before. There were plenty of experienced birders, but few fanatics. He relaxed. This would be easy. They wouldn’t be hard to please.
    ‘High Island isn’t an island at all, of course. It’s a small town, close to the coast, raised slightly above the surrounding wetland. I believe it’s all of thirty-nine feet above sea level. Hardly a mountain, of course, but distinctive enough to be attractive to birds.’
    There was an appreciative, slightly superior chuckle from his audience.
    ‘There are four main birdwatching areas on the Upper Texas Coast: Anahuac, a National Wildlife Refuge which has more than twenty-seven thousand acres of marsh, the Bolivar Flats, an area of saltmarsh and beach, and two Houston Audubon Society Sanctuaries in High Island itself – the famous Boy Scout and Smith Oaks woods. We’ll spend time at each depending on the weather. What we need are strong, turbulent head winds to meet the migrants as they fly north from the Yucatan peninsula. That should result in what we call a fall and the Americans call a fall out. If that happens it’ll be the most spectacular birding experience of your lives: thousands of tired migrants seeking shelter in the woodlands on the reserves. From a personal point of view I’ll be watching the weather forecasts very carefully. I first visited High Island twenty years ago and I’ve never experienced the ideal conditions for a classic fall. Then on Sunday there’s the Easter Bird Race or Birdathon which will benefit a number of environmental organizations. Oaklands has