Nature Trails

Heartfelt apologies to friends and family in Saskatchewan. While you brace yourselves for a significant snow storm over the next few days, the rosebushes around our home in Birmingham are covered in fragrant blossoms and the Eastern Bluebird pair from our back garden have already fledged their first nestlings. From his chair on the back patio, Dean enthuses at the long list of bird species on his Merlin sound ID. I walk the paved trail adjacent to Shades Creek, binoculars in hand, keen to observe the movements of migration. We continue to learn the ways that spring in the south runs on a different timeline than what we remember from the north.

May of 2020 found us all in the midst of the Covid lockdown. For six weeks our adult kids had lived at home with us, finishing their college semesters online. When warming weather finally allowed us to get out of the house, we were disappointed to find that many local parks and walkways were cordoned off. So one Saturday morning the kids and I explored a few miles of the Nicolle Flats Nature Trail, which bordered wetlands at the eastern end of Buffalo Pound Lake about 20 miles from our home.  Fortified after a stop at the McDonalds’ breakfast drive-through, we turned our car off of a long gravel road and parked in the quiet lot.

Buffalo Pound Lake sits long (22 miles) and narrow among low hills. In contrast to the treeless prairie all around it, ancient cottonwoods and poplars circle the lake, providing rich habitat for migrating and nesting birds.  

We explored together with water bottles in one hand, binoculars in the other. Sunshine warmed our shoulders. Around us, chartreuse green leaves burst in tiny, brilliant tufts from prairie shrubs, tracing slender ravines and brightening hillsides that still wore their dead winter shades of buff and stone. Blooms of palest mauve prairie crocuses poked quietly abundant up through still-dead meadow grasses on either side of the trail. I led us single file on the dry, dirt path, our heads swivelling, gazes travelling between the trees in the middle distance up to the bright blue sky, then briefly downward to reestablish contact with the trail and ensure we didn’t trip over errant roots. We hoped to see more than simple spring sparrows, longed to be surprised with the brilliant but uncommon colours of Violet-green Swallows and Mountain Bluebirds.  It all felt so beautiful, to share some simple happiness with my kids. Looking up into the perfect sky, I drew in a deep, peaceful breath before flicking my gaze briefly onto the path below.  

Snake! Across the trail in just the spot where I would naturally have stepped, perfectly camouflaged, a large garter snake stretched, sunning itself. My physiological shock was instant and intense. “A snake!” I shrieked, startling to an abrupt halt and breaking into a high-stepping dance. Emily and Carl, shocked abruptly out of their own happy thoughts, immediately took up my contagious moves as we all danced the same, jerky dance, exclaiming, throwing looks onto the ground below us. The snake slithered away into the tall grass.  

Taking a shuddering breath, hand pressed to my chest, I looked at the kids with big eyes because, jeepers, that was completely unexpected and, also, I hate snakes. Carl talked me down, hands on his hips. “Mom, it was only a snake.” He insisted that he only shouted and danced because Emily and I set him off.  

So we continued our walk, because it was a beautiful day and the trail still stretched away before us. Peering intently through my binoculars, I was sure that I could pick out the brilliant plumage of the Mountain Bluebird, which made me so happy.

My scream caught even me off guard. It happened so fast, barely a minute or so after the first time – look up to check the sky for birds, look down quickly to gauge my footing, see another snake stretched across the path. As before, my yelps and jerky high-stepping triggered shrieks and dancing from my adult kids. I wondered whether, a la The Far Side, this was some collective snake hazing ritual. Fed up, Carl replaced me at the head of the line. We saw no more snakes. We did see Mountain Bluebirds, so that was a win. But I was never again quite comfortable on the trail.  

Carl and Emily, as you navigate the snow tomorrow, perhaps it is a small consolation for you to know that I’ll need to watch where I’m stepping when I walk Alabama trails; so many snakes. 

Still, when we feel uncomfortable in the places our trails take us, or when something scary unexpectedly crosses our paths, we might as well dance.  Then make Carl go first.