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It was pitch black outside, comfortably cool, and the harsh tones of a phone alarm broke the peaceful silence. It barely had time to sound twice before Merrin’s hand slapped down on it, quickly silencing it. Not out of an attempt to snooze it or anything, though, she’d actually been awake the last half hour, too excited to sleep.
“Chloé!” she blurted out, bright-eyed, shaking the peaceful figure beside her. Chloé let out a soft moan and rolled on to her side, facing away from her.
“It’s still dark,” she murmured.
Merrin scoffed. “That’s the point! We have to hike up in the dark so we don’t get overheated! I told you this before!”
Another loud sigh, and Chloé stretched. Her toned limbs shifted, chest puffing out slightly from the angle. If Merrin wasn’t in rare critter mode, she probably would’ve been tempted to stay in bed longer. But, she had plans, and she was extremely ready to execute them.
She slid off the bed of their rented lodgings, jogging over to their suitcases on the floor. Her clothes for the day were quickly removed- hiking pants and a t-shirt- and then she tossed Chloé a random outfit. They plopped on top of her still-horizontal figure.
“C’mon, babe, I’m already halfway there!” Merrin said as she staggered around, pulling on her pants. When she glanced over at Chloé, she was pleased to see her girlfriend was now putting on the shirt she’d thrown her.
Chloé hefted out a sigh. “Can you hand me a brush and hair tie?”
Merrin chucked them across the room without hesitation, beaming when Chloé picked them off the bed. With trained precision, she swept her hair up into a simple ponytail. Usually she wore it down, but they were going into the brush, and it’d be good to have it out of her face.
As her girlfriend continued to get ready, Merrin moved on to pack up their hiking bags for the day. She made sure there was plenty of water in both, very important for the day they had planned, plus their lunches and assorted granola bars for snacking. When everything was properly collected, Merrin turned to check on Chloé. She was intercepted by a hug from behind.
“You’re so cute when you’re being a dork,” her girlfriend murmured. Merrin blushed a little, but grasped Chloé’s hands firmly wrapped around her abdomen.
Merrin let out a soft huff. “What’s dorky about Colima warblers?”
A soft kiss was pressed to her ear. “Everything. Everything is dorky about Colima warblers, and that’s okay.”
“Nothing is dorky about Colima warblers if you still want Mexican tonight,” Merrin countered, and Chloé broke out in adorable giggles. The arms around her released, and though the absence of Chloé’s warmth was missed, Merrin was too excited to care.
Her girlfriend lightly shoved her shoulder. “You wouldn’t dare keep me from my beef tongue tacos,” Chloé said, smiling. She took a water bottle from their cooler and prodded Merrin’s arm with it. “ Speaking of which, let’s get moving, I’m hungry.”
“Hey, I’m waiting on you,” Merrin laughed. She picked up her binoculars, looping the harness around herself and tightening everything. With that in place, she threw her backpack over her shoulders and grabbed her headlamp off a nearby table. “See? I’m ready.”
Chloé playfully rolled her eyes and picked up her own pack. “I’m coming, Merrin.”
It only took another ten minutes for them to get their hiking boots on and arrive at the hiking trail. While Big Bend National Park was a popular location, their trail for the day was nothing more than a well-trodden sand path though scrub. Merrin confidently took the lead, her light illuminating only about ten feet in front of her.
The ground was fairly uneven with lots of rocks of varying sizes and thick, prickly plants sticking out to trip them. They had a two and a half mile trek ahead of them through cacti and shrubs, which didn’t sound so bad if you didn’t know half of it was up a huge mountain. But, this mountain in the middle of this massive, Texas desert was the only place in the US where one could see Colima warblers. Any serious US birder had to make a trip here at least once in their life. This was Merrin’s first of hopefully many trips.
The first 20 minutes were fairly quiet. It was 4:30 AM, too far before sunrise for many noisy creatures to be about. With the darkness so oppressive, the pair was more focused on where their feet were at than having a lighthearted conversation.
Merrin suddenly gasped and came to a stop.
“What is it?” Chloé said, leaning around her. Merrin pointed at a hole in one of the rock ‘steps’ in front of them.
There was a small-ish tarantula scrunched up in the space, completely still despite the two lights aimed at it. Its long, hairy legs were black and it’s cephalothorax was a pale brown-orange color.
“Oooo!”
Merrin nodded enthusiastically. “That’s a Texas brown tarantula! Looks like a male one.”
“How can you tell?” her girlfriend asked, eyes glittering.
“He’s small, kinda scrawny,” Merrin said, shrugging slightly. “It’s so cool to see one out and about!”
She fumbled around her pockets for a moment, eventually managing to get out her phone. A couple swipes later and she took a photo of the tarantula, probably flash-banging it in the process. The screen was held up to Chloé as if to ask for her opinion.
“Are they rare?”
“Nah, just insanely cool,” Merrin said with a grin. She pocketed her phone once again. “We can keep going now, sorry for the hold up.”
A soft giggle came in response. “Merrin, it’s fine! It’s a cool little critter.”
Chloé gaze rested on the creature inquisitively, head tilting just a bit. “You know,” she said, and leaned over to get a slightly closer look, “fried tarantula is a pretty popular street dish in Cambodia.”
Merrin let out a faux-offended gasp. “Don’t even joke about that, he’s just chilling in there.”
The smaller girl just laughed and started walking up the trail again. “They also serve them in Mexico with tacos sometimes.”
“Don’t eat him!” Merrin blurted out with a little too much panic. She jogged after her girlfriend, thankful that it was still plenty cool out.
Thankfully, Chloé dropped the topic of tarantula-related dishes. She did, however, switch over to different types of cooked insects she was interested in trying, which was only slightly less upsetting. Merrin was willing to try a lot of food for her girlfriend, but she drew the line at Madagascar hissing cockroaches.
They stopped again about a half hour later for a water break. Neither of them were particularly thirsty yet, but in a desert, it was important to drink regularly to stay hydrated when it did get unbearably hot out. Merrin chugged away at her water while Chloé ate one of her cricket granola bars.
It was during this break that Merrin was suddenly greeted by a sharp, wobbly ‘whip-poor-WILL’. The song was repeated a few times, during which Merrin froze completely. She grabbed Chloé’s wrist to stop her from taking another bite as she listened.
After about a minute, the singing stopped.
“That was a Mexican whip-poor-will!” Merrin cheered. Her phone came out again, this time to open her birding app. It took about thirty seconds to load up the checklist, which she quickly added one of that species to.
Chloé smiled at Merrin’s exuberance. “Is that one rare?”
“Not around here, but away from the border, yeah,” Merrin said. She put her phone away again and took another, long drink of water. The bottle was shoved back into her bag. “Let’s get moving again! Seems like the birds are starting to come out, now.”
Chloé gave her a peck on the cheek. “Lead the way, love.”
Merrin had been right about the birds coming out. A few minutes later, as they hiked, she picked up the extremely deep hoots of a flammulated owl, then the high-pitched barking of an elf owl. An attempt was made to see the elf owl, it sounded pretty close, but after ten minutes of searching Merrin had to call it quits. They had to reach the summit shortly after sunrise, after all.
One canyon towhee and three rufous-crowned sparrows later, they finally arrived at the actual start of the mountain climb. Sure, they’d been gaining altitude already, but the previous steepness was nothing compared to the trail now. It was constant, zigzagging paths that were nonstop steep. Merrin’s calves were aching just looking at them, but god she was excited to get up there.
“We’re almost there!” she cheered, doing a little dance. “Colima warblers should be showing up any minute now!”
“We’re still going to the top, though, right?” Chloé said. She was eating another of her granola bars.
“Oh, for sure!” Merrin shot her a thumbs-up. “There’re plenty of other critters to see up here beside the Colimas!”
As if on cue, a chorus of soft shrieking came from the trees to their right. Both turned their heads towards the sound, immediately greeted by a small flock of light blue and grey birds. They seemed completely unafraid of their presence. In fact, one of the birds flew down on the ground between the two of them.
“Well, hey there!” Chloé cooed. She broke off a piece of her granola and tossed it to the bird, who happily plucked it from the ground and flew back into the trees. A chorus of weird, high-pitched barking noises echoed after it.
“That’s an adorable Mexican jay! A whole bunch of them, actually!” Merrin paused to lightly hit her girlfriend’s shoulder. “And don’t feed wild animals.”
“What? It has bugs in it!”
For whatever reason, Chloé’s chipper tone made her blush a little. She felt a little too embarrassed about that and quickly turned around, heading back up the steep trail. “Whatever, let’s go!”
The foliage around this area was much denser than the previous section of the hike, but it also opened up into sections where there was a gorgeous view of the sweeping valley below them. Scraggly, needled trees, century plants, and assorted cacti were on all sides. Most of the plants were rather drab colors, but the cacti all had bright yellow, red, and orange flowers on their tops.
As the walking continued, they racked up more and more species for Merrin’s birding app, and also assorted things like lizards and bugs. Merrin caught one of the lizards so Chloé could get a better look at it, and she didn’t even make comments about its edibility.
They were almost to the summit now, the heat of the day finally making itself known. It wasn’t uncomfortable yet, but it was a solid ten degrees hotter than it had been only half an hour ago. Despite all of Merrin’s best efforts, they were still short a Colima warbler. They had seen ten different species of flycatchers, at least five birds of prey (Merrin was a bit rusty on her hawk ID), and twelve other warbler species, but no Colima warblers.
Merrin was starting to feel a tiny bit disappointed.
About ten minutes past sunrise- all the birdwatching had put them a bit behind schedule- they stopped for another water break. Merrin watched a pair of spotted towhees about thirty feet down the slope chattering loudly at each other. The two females were hopping about, pecking the ground, eating bugs Merrin couldn’t see; it was a scene right out of a nature documentary.
It was also this scene that reminded her that she’d come out on this trip with her beautiful girlfriend who she loved very much, and maybe she should try enjoying it more for those reasons than her ability to see Colima warblers. Merrin took a deep breath and turned to look at Chloé.
“How’ve you been enjoying the hike so far?” she said, scratching at the back of her neck.
Chloé beamed, her smile bringing warm flutters to her chest. “Oh, it’s great! I’ve never been in a place like this before.” She paused, then with a bit of a coy look, added, “And I’ve never had the privilege of seeing you geek out for this long.”
Merrin chuckled and shook her head. “Well, uh, I promise I’ll go back to normal once we’re back to the bottom.”
“Oh hush,” Chloé smiled. She rested a hand on Merrin’s, whose head whipped to the side to hide her flushing face. “You don’t judge me for getting all hyped up over new food to try, and I don’t judge you for loving your critters. It’s one of your cutest features, actually.”
“I’m not supposed to be cute,” Merrin grumbled, “I’m cool.”
Chloé gently grabbed her chin and pulled her face back to hers. “Merrin? Shut up,” she said, and gave her a peck on the lips. “We’re wasting cool temperatures, right?”
That snapped her right back into critter mode. “We are!” Merrin said, jumping back up to her feet. “The Colima warblers are gonna start hunkering down out of the desert heat!”
She pulled her pack from the ground and started to march up the trail, only to immediately be stopped by Chloé saying, “Oh, what’s this one, Merrin?”
Merrin turned her head casually, already anticipating another canyon towhee to add to the count for the day. “That’s a, uh-“
Her eyes landed on a small, drab bird hopping in a bush just off path. It had apparently surfaced to catch a large fly, clearly held tight in its beak, and was heading back towards the ground. The only pop of color on its otherwise grey body was its bright yellow butt. Merrin gasped, eyes sparkling at her sight of it.
“Th-that’s it!” she yelled, immediately throwing her bag on the ground and unzipping it. “That’s our guy!”
Chloé’s eyes lit up. “Really? I’m so glad you were able to see it!”
Merrin pulled out her camera, one of her most prized possessions. Most things she only took phone pictures of, but rare critters got the camera. In a matter of seconds she had it on, manually focused the lens because there was no way in hell it could automatically do it with the bird in a bush, and snapped about ten pictures before the bird disappeared entirely.
She went straight to view the images, flipping through them and hoping at least one wasn’t blurry. They all kinda were, but one was clear enough to see some of the identifying features. Merrin laughed like a little kid, proudly shoving her camera in Chloé’s face.
“Colima warbler!” she cheered, so excited that she had to hop around a little to expel the excess energy. Chloé watched her with an intense fondness, giggling all the while.
It took a solid five minutes for Merrin to settle down, and even then she was still all giddy and jittery. Her camera was put back into her bag, and then she was chomping at the bit to get moving again. With the warbler finally secured, she could think about non critter-related things again.
“You still want to eat at the top?”
“Of course!” Chloé chirped, quickly falling in behind her again, “I’m starving, we skipped breakfast!”
“I’ll make it up to you later,” Merrin said, her usual suaveness returning. “I’ll buy you as much beef tongue as you can eat.”
“And you’ll try some too?”
Merrin scoffed, grinning nice and wide. “I made you climb up this bigass mountain with me, the least I could do is try some beef tongue.”
She could hear the smug look on Chloé’s face. “And rub my legs?”
They both knew what that meant. Merrin smirked. “I’ll rub your legs all night, love.”