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The title is an exaggeration, but there were Mojave Greens out that spring and I was bitten - but not by a snake.
Before discussing snakes or birds, I should provide a some background information: It was the off-season from my regular, seasonal Interpretive Park Ranger job in Southwest Colorado. I had returned to my home-state to work as a Seasonal Park Aid with the California State Parks, namely the Mojave Sector's Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve, west of Lancaster's growing suburban sprawl.
Those duties differed from my usual routine of leading tours through cliff-dwellings at Mesa Verde National Park. Staffing an entrance station may seem totally different than telling people what we think we know about the Pueblo builders of the Southwest, but at least one thing was all-too-familiar: That often belligerent, predictably unpredictable, human subspecies, Homo sapiens publicus Americanus - The Great American Public (plus many other nationalities). I didn't really dislike them, being well aware that American taxes subsidized my paycheck. I worked for them, and happen to be a 'people-person', ideal for a job requiring public-relations skills. Notwithstanding, I have the distinct impression that modern humanity has an overblown sense of entitlement; everything should be instantly available on demand, at the touch of a button, the flip of a switch. Nature, however, doesn't work that way...
They don't want to hear this, especially when paying an entrance fee. Oh, I understand the grievances about fee collection, I do, but roads don't pave themselves, bathrooms aren't self-cleaning, electricity isn't free, and those taxes, regrettably, don't cover everything. But I understood. It was a little harder to understand when they held me personally responsible because nature was being uncooperative: Sure, there's a bear roaming around; yeah, it's raining; yes, the park's on fire, but, no, there's not much I can do about these things. To a degree they can be controlled and/or dealt with; bears can be chased off or relocated, rain eventually stops and fire can be contained. That, and Mojave Greens can be caught and removed.
'Other Duties as Required', as mentioned in my job description, is a vague statement at best. A lifetime of conditioning wasn't something so easily dismissed just because some supervisor said, "Come help me catch this snake!" In my good ear?? I was raised in the hills and taught to avoid rattlers. Now I was being ordered to get up-close-and-personal with a deadly Mojave Green, a rattlesnake with a possibly exaggerated aggressiveness, but with venom containing both hemeotoxin and neurotoxin, affecting the bloodstream and nervous-system, respectively. Great...! But we had it under control (more or less).
What we couldn't control, however, was the wildflower display or lack thereof, the public's expectations nor the media-hype fueling their hopes. There were two problems interfering with the Mojave Desert's usual show that year: The drought plaguing the whole Southwest, along with the bromes, or 'foxtails'. Foxtail stickers will hitch a ride in animal fur to spread seeds, and spread bromes do! They're invasive enough to launch a full-scale invasion, covering hillsides and displacing indigenous plants, including flowers. Regardless, the public couldn't or wouldn't except our powerlessness over Nature. Although I was outwardly patient, Job himself couldn't have stood hearing, "Where's the poppies? Why aren't there any?", "Where's the flowers?", "I'll just turn around", "You're charging people?", etcetera, again and again (and, no, you can't get high off of these poppies!).
Actually, the official California state flower was once more widespread. But, like the rest of the West, Southern California was once a very different place: Long ago, Mexican vaqueros (the American cowboy's prototype) used to ride out of the San Rafael Hills to greet rancho visitors with serapes, which were used for scaring off any Grizzly Bears they might meet(!) Yet that was then, the 1800's, and ironically, the Grizzly Bear depicted on the state flag has been eradicated from wild California. Times have changed for the poppy, too:
Poppies used to blanket both the deserts and the whole Southland area, and Saint Pasqual was said to be a shepherd who knelt in fields of flowers to pray. Thus, Pasadena, California was known as Rancho San Pasqual back when it was still part of Mexico. Since the Spanish habitually christened places after their saints, like San Francisco, this area with such a proliferation of flowers was named after Pasqual. The vast, orange poppy fields were equated with his alter cloth. The land is now mostly paved-over and the saint's name remains only as a Pasadena residential side-street and some part of San Diego County.
But I cannot turn back time and make the wild-flowers reappear. Regardless, this is about the Grebe (remember), specifically a Western Grebe, Archmophorus Occidentalis. Although this was only waterfowl, any animal can be dangerous when injured or cornered. This bird was neither, but I didn't know that he wasn't hurt, and even assumed the opposite. There's a saying about 'assuming', and also a term for the complacent and arrogant: Hubris, Greek for, "Pay attention, Stupid!", like when I had that accident at Mesa Verde (I digress; that's another story).
Anyway, the day of my Grebe encounter was slow, but I was so preoccupied with the panoramic views, of both desert and the purple San Gabriel Mountains where I was raised, to care much about low park visitation. The high country in those mountains actually has peaks at over 10,000 feet, admittedly not as high as Colorado's 'fourteeners' (although California's Mount Whitney is the tallest in the contiguous U.S. at 14,497 feet). 'High Country' is a relative term; eastern mountains would be western hills. The surrounding desert itself would be high elevation back east, although the Poppy Reserve is only 2,600-3,000 feet, modest by western standards.
Not easily bored, I was nonetheless glad when some lady interrupted my daydreaming. She came to report an immobile bird in the road. I was grateful for the excuse to get out, if only to check on the local wildlife. This bird was sitting to the west of the entrance station, so I had to approach him facing the mid-afternoon sun, with only a silhouette visible. Resembling a sitting duck, or goose, I got nearer and could see through the glare that this was neither.
The bird had a white breast, a black-topped head with startling scarlet-red eyes and lobed feet. Grebe's toes aren't webbed but are flattened, an adaptation to wetlands life. I really should have been paying more attention to that long, spring-loaded neck and long, slender beak.
Incessantly chill winds cut through both the grasslands and clothing, so I was wearing my regulation coat to wrap the Grebe in. But once wrapped up, I accidently dropped my kicking, squirming captive and had to re-bundle him. The bird struck - A nightmarish blur of red eyes in a black-and-white face, propelled by a snake-like neck, shot out of my coat and right at my face! He pinched my nose with his yellow beak which looked like a big pair of garden-shears. I dropped him (again), reached to feel the wound, and found bloody fingers when I pulled my hand away. The matching, precision cuts on my nostrils looked like they had been inflicted by a razor blade.
After re-bundling the unhappy Grebe even tighter, I returned to my post and to a reminder of my place in this world, or at least within the reserve, which was evidently somewhere between a rock and a vicious marsh-bird. (It's just like in the movies: Blow up an entire army, but God forbid some mutt should die...) I love animals, but this was reality, not to mention my nose. I thought inquiries about the lackluster wildflower display were irritating until I heard, "What a beautiful bird!", "What kind of bird is that?" The kind that bites! "Oh, he got ya didn't he?"
No kidding! The docent who shared this insight did make a less obvious observation: These birds could only take off from the water... If so, one of them could easily mistake a ribbon of asphalt for a waterway. The bird must have gotten stranded, since he was obviously uninjured, with an unimpaired ability to kick, flap and bite. For these reasons, I put him in an ice-chest, which I shoved into a closet (for his own good of course).
After being alone for hours my relief finally came, once they heard about our feathered guest, that is. I endured the docent and a visitor cooing over him and then was treated to an encore performance by my supervisor and the Law Enforcement Officer. My supervisor rejected the theory that our avian invalid needed to take flight from the water, because they're migratory (huh??). The probable explanation was officially ruled out, despite the fact that the bird was unhurt. Later, the L.E.O. left and took him to a wildlife rescue organization. That was that...
Until I asked her about the bird's condition the next day: Fine, she said, he was released from the water since it's the only way they can take off! Our supervisor was born and raised in the Mojave, but that apparently didn't automatically endow her with an expertise in ornithology.
Oh, well. I was only intermittent, filling in during the 'peak-season' which never really peaked. I would soon return to Mesa Verde, Colorado where Western Grebes are mercifully scarce, and where I fell backwards off of a cliff during the first tour of my first season.
But, like I said, that's another story...
A true story by Lee Littler
Copyright, 2011
About the Author:
I developed an early interest in nature and have learned a lot about it, and it continues to be a major passion and part of my life.
I have a passionate interest in Native American Indian cultures also, a subject of which I am quite knowledgeable, so much so that I can now honestly say that I have forgotten more than most people will ever know, partly because my knowledge is not limited to reading books or the classroom; I have been around these people off and on for about half of my life now, learning and experiencing their culture first-hand, attending many dances, pow-wows, ceremonials, and other events.
I have both vocational and educational backgrounds in anthropology, archaeology, history, and natural history/biology, having worked as a Wilderness Patrolman for the Forest Service on the Angeles National Forest, a Park Aid with the California State Park's Mojave District, and an Interpretive Park Ranger at Mesa Verde in Colorado, America's premiere archaeological park, and I have completed field-study courses in Anthropology of the Southwest, Anthropology and History of the West, Natural History and a short-term course in Geology.
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