The birds had been working for two and a half hours by now, and fatigue and fear of the night-flying began to take its toll on the kit. A few spent individuals began to drop out of the kit and wing their way across the night sky, flying like homers, frantically searching the inky blackness for their loft in the glare of the streetlights and the city lights of Greensboro’s buildings. Wendall had turned on flood lights all around the lofts and kit boxes and a street light that he had installed, nearby, illuminated the yard like daylight. (I vowed to go home and have one installed, as well.) All of us were whistling for all we were worth…until we could no longer manage a pucker; our hands cupped around around our mouths trying to broadcast our location to the wayward kit. A solitary homozygous grizzle criss-crossed the sky above us, back and forth, at only 50-100 feet. Our whistling seemed to fall on deaf pigeon ears for we could not bring them down. Instead, the solitary bird continued winging his way hard, across the night sky. Then, with landing gear down, a bird or two began to settle on the loft and rattle the traps. It was a comforting sound.

The main body of the kit was once again nowhere to be found. The city lights of Greensboro glowed a few miles to the west. “They’re bound to have headed for the light. Maybe they’ll come down on a city building in the light and make it back in the morning,” Jerry and I said, trying to sound encouraging. “Don’t worry. They’ll be back,” Wendall repeated, clinging to hope that had already escaped me.

I truly believed, at that point, that Wendall had lost his A-kit. “I can’t believe they wouldn’t come down, Wendall,” I shook my head in disbelief, but I was heartsick for my friend. Wendall was silent for a moment, his pride over the world-class performance his birds had put on for us was now replaced with a more somber expression as he, too, realized that he might never see them again. By eleven o’clock, we were exhausted from the long day. “We gotta go, buddy”, we said. “Call us in the morning.”

“Don’t worry. They’ll be back,” was all he said.

The sand man was beating me to death, and I had little trouble falling asleep, despite my concern for my roller buddy and the excellent kit of birds that I was sure had been lost. Up at 7:00 AM, I wolfed down breakfast and while feeding my own birds, I phoned Wendall. “You ain’t gonna believe it,” he said. “ I checked the kit box at midnight and half the kit was back. I woke up at 2:30 AM this morning and went out to check again. They all made it back, but one…you know…that white bird!” The homozygous grizzle never did make it back. “I told you they’d come back!” he gloated. Some of those birds had flown five hours…others for seven hours! The ordeal was over and all was well. So goes my first and only experience with night-flying rollers. I don’t think I’ll try that anytime soon; but, as a result of the experience, I developed a deeper appreciation for the true character, the stamina, and the heart in these birds, Birmingham Rollers.