The great egrets shunned the other waterfowl.
The egrets were staying in Vegas as part of their winter migrational route. Like an ivy league clique, they stuck up their bills while congregating in a lush, green riparian grove, which made their white plumage all the more stunning — like fresh-fallen snow.
And they knew it.
Meanwhile, the gambel’s quail were skittish, despite being on their year-round turf. They ran from the paparazzi as per usual, head plumes bobbing as they made for the clearings, taking cover in the bramble.
Grackles engrossed in nonstop quibbles like tweens in a schoolyard. Their predatory clamber across tree bark, clawing like cats on carpet. Grackles and the way that they crow and cackle! Torpedoing from bush to rock to tree to fountain, dumpster-diving, whizzing past your head like P-140 bombers. Fluttering low like bats in Victorian homes, perched on hilltops and awash in fog and sickly lamplight, their nefarious flight charged with purpose, bulging from their green button eyes.