Laura Erickson’s For the Birds

Last time I told a couple of stories about misadventures I’ve had birding, specifically falling and spraining my ankle on a Wisconsin Christmas bird count and backing off a cliff in Arizona. But not all of my outdoor mishaps have involved spills.

Once when our family was in Florida, I took a hike on the Snakebight Trail while Russ drove the kids down to Flamingo for a picnic. I was pokey and rather late for our meeting time as I headed back. The Snakebight Trail is wide—it used to be a logging road—and as I walked briskly back, what I thought was a large shadow across the path in front of me suddenly materialized into a huge alligator just resting there.

I didn’t know what to do, it was so large I didn’t think I could jump over its middle and it was so long that both ends were well off the path. If I walked around I didn’t know which end would be less dangerous. Alligator tails may not bite but they’re powerful enough to break a muscular man’s legs. I was scared to venture off the path anyway, because I’d heard a couple of rattlesnakes in the dry leaf litter.

I tried lecturing the alligator but that technique works better on bears. Alligators are apparently like those junior high kids who have learned to tune out their parents and teachers. Finally I picked up a few twigs and tossed them at it. It lifted its tremendous body on its squat sturdy legs and moseyed off.

Bears I’ve encountered when all by myself or with my little dog Photon or when I was up at Hawk Ridge counting with my Nighthawk Fred always sauntered off when I started talking to them.

I haven’t been surprised by any snakes though apparently one night when I was in Costa Rica a huge bush master was lurking very close to where my group walked. Someone five minutes behind us told us about one that was wound up around a large tree limb inches from where our bare arms had just passed.

When I brought my Girl Scout troop on a camping trip to Jay Cooke State Park, we arrived in late afternoon as storm clouds were gathering. It was a half mile from the parking lot to the group campsites and we had to lug our tents and sleeping bags and food in a hurry. Raindrops were falling as we set up camp, but our tents were set up before the downpour. We had to stay in our tents for over an hour until the rain let up.

Starting a campfire with wet wood was tricky so preparing dinner was a long affair and by the time we finished it was growing dark. Our troop had two leaders and we’d have been happy to make the hike back to the cars with the coolers, but Girl Scout rules required that one leader remain at camp if girls are present and that no one including leaders go off by themselves. So for me to carry the food back to the cars required at least one girl to volunteer to help. But the girls were tired and none of them wanted to help so we fastened the cooler as securely as we could and went to bed.

In the middle of the night, we heard the strange trilling of raccoons and sure enough they knew how to open the coolers and made off with all the bacon and most of the eggs. I was personally impressed with how neat they were. They didn’t break a single egg or spill any milk or juice so although they left the cooler emptier they also left it cleaner than the girls usually did. We still had plenty of food for breakfast so it was no real sacrifice.

Naturally the girls told their parents all about it, well except for the part about how I’d asked for a volunteer to help me bring the cooler back to the car and the part about how not one of them was willing to help me and the part about how I’d warned them about raccoons.

For the next few years several parents mentioned the incident every time they ran into me, finding great humorous value in the fact that the bird lady herself apparently didn’t have a clue about the right way to camp. I was pretty easy going about it, not teasing them in return about the right way to raise daughters. After all my own daughter was among the girls who didn’t volunteer to help.

I’m Laura Erickson speaking for the birds.