Did you know that an oriole hopping about in bushes and leaves makes about the same amount of noise as three does standing together and fidgeting in the underbrush? Recently, I found this out for myself on two consecutive days. The first day, I slowed my pace and looked about for the rustling, hoping it was not a skulking bobcat or spraying skunk. A relatively small bird was making the most of grubs and caterpillars with gusto ten feet to my right. It ignored me. Next day I heard what I identified as the same noise ten feet to my left. Expecting to see yet another avian variety, instead I spied three deer ladies, posed and staring inquiringly back at me. “Please don’t stampede,” I said under my breath.
Yes, I rely on, and am grateful to retain, my auditory sense. Hearing once kept me from stepping closer to a rattler braided into a yucca bush. Usually I can hear elk or big horn before I see them and avoid collision. A spinning sprocket has its own individual voice and I can frequently tell whether it is fore or aft and find a rock or wide space to cling to before I hear the startled operator croak, “on your left.”
But the wind? The wind changes everything. Are the trees going to fall on me? Or is that creaking and groaning actually a derailleur changing gears? The pines and juniper make me skittish. Yesterday I was out of the woods, and in the gambles oak and sage brush when I heard the fast approach of a cyclist who clearly needed to oil his chain. I jumped into the grass and yucca and turned to see a wizened oak leaf, dried into a gnarled fist shape, driven by the wind – rasping all the way – chasing me down the dirt path.
Some days are becalmed but for my forward tread. Not a breeze. Lizards and snakes soundless, unnoticed unless you see them. On one such day I hiked a familiar trail. Taking a right turn at a fork I thought to myself, “Private property up ahead, I’ll just walk to the sign and then turn back.” Suddenly. Noiseless. There in the willows. As surprised and curious at my silent approach as I was by hers; a doe.
