Outdoors

By Pat Wray
Corvallis Gazette-Times

I was here in Kissimmee, Fla., for three days before I realized what was wrong. It was the noise. It never stops. It is inescapable, whether it be thundering, powerful noise from the jets passing overhead from Orlando Airport, tire and engine noise from the highway in front of my motel, musical noise from the sound system overlooking the motel pool or air conditioning noise from my room. I have not seen or heard a bird since my arrival. A day-long trip to the Epcot Center was even more aurally overwhelming. Nowhere on that entire complex is it possible to escape the sound of rides, of displays, of ethnic musicians.

And it’s not just my ears that are besieged. The town of Kissimmee is visually overwhelming, as well. The highway is plastered with signs outcompeting each other until it is essentially impossible to read any but the very largest. It is Corvallis’ 9th Street in the midst of a steroid rage. Finally I escape, if only for a short time. I get away for a couple hours before work.

I am out before daylight headed east toward a state management area, where there are hiking trails along lakes and into the deep woods. By the time I am a quarter-mile into the woods, the highway noise fades to an almost imperceptible buzz. At my age I can barely tell it from the dozens of mosquitoes who’ve adopted me as their new best friend. With a little help from DEET, I feel myself relax to a degree I haven’t experienced since I left home as a Red Cross Disaster Volunteer 10 days ago.

The forest is thick with longleaf pine, live oaks and palmettos. The soil is soft white sand. Marsh grasses intrude from the edges of a large lake nearby. The air is thick and hot and although I once was at home in this country, I’ve lived too long in western Oregon to transition back easily.

I hear a nearby rustling sound and freeze just in time to see a small armadillo emerge. I wait until he passes close by, then reach down and lift him up by the tail. But I’m out of practice and don’t get him off the ground quickly enough. He pulls out of my grasp by digging into the sand with his strong front paws. I miss armadillos. I wonder if we could trade our opossums for them.

Near the thick underbrush where he disappears I see a hole in the ground. It looks like the hole made by a gopher tortoise. Lots of things take up residence in gopher tortoise burrows, including rattlesnakes. A friend of mine made extra money by pulling rattlers from gopher tortoise holes with a curved metal pole and selling them to a snake farm. He carried the snakes in a large gunny sack. One day he opened the trunk of his Volkswagen Beetle while buying gas to find the gunny sack had loosened and all four rattlers had disappeared somewhere into the car. He pushed the car off to the side of the station, opened the doors, trunk and engine compartment and left the vehicle to sit for a week. When he returned the snakes had disappeared but a skunk had taken up residence under the passenger seat. The skunk claimed squatter’s rights and became downright possessive. The end result was a car my friend could not sell and even more important, tended to repel women he wanted to date. When he finally found one willing to accompany him in the car he knew she was a jewel even if, or perhaps because, she had no sense of smell. They married soon after. There is something to be said for putting prospective spouses to the test.

An old barn near the trail is attracting vultures, who are drying their wings in the early morning sunlight. There are nearly two dozen of the big birds on top of the roof and they are not good neighbors. When crowded, they will raise their wings and lunge at the interloper with their beaks. They don’t seem to bite, but they hiss loudly during this activity and I suspect the expulsion of carrion breath is more powerful than a bite.

Just on the other side of a palmetto patch I see a flash of pink. I peek slowly around the leaves and am rewarded by what I think at first is a flamingo. A close look reveals that it is a roseate spoonbill, standing motionless on its right leg. It is oblivious to me. Its nearby neighbor, a mature great blue heron, is anything but oblivious. It is standing at its full height and although it’s not looking directly at me, I know it has me pegged, as does the snowy egret standing alert nearby. I stand stationary for 10 minutes, then back slowly behind the palmetto.

I stay there listening to the sounds of unfamiliar birds, insects buzzing, frogs leaping, fish rising, leaves rustling in the wind…and it occurs to me that something fundamental has changed… I am OK again. I believe I am even ready to face Kissimmee once more, though I’d rather just come home and hunt elk.

Pat Wray can be reached at patwray@comcast.net.