Wit Stop

Talking Nature with Mr. Coyle

Arizona offers a rich and varied menu of flora and fauna because of its great range of elevation, about 12,000 feet. Most of us associate Arizona with desert country, where the stately saguaro cactus thrives along with shrubs and trees such as the paloverde, mesquite, and ironwood. That's because this Lower Sonoran Zone where cottontails, jackrabbits, skunks, javelinas, and countless other desert animals have enough sense to stay in their burrows or dens during the day and venture out only during the early morning or evening hours covers about one-third of the state.

However, there are five other life zones within Arizona: the Upper Sonoran Zone, the Transition Zone, the Canadian Zone, the Hudsonian Zone, and the Alpine Zone above the tree line. Besides the desert plants, Arizona exhibits ponderosa pine, Douglas fir, aspen, oak, and spruce trees. Roaming in her higher regions are black bears, whitetailed deer, elk, and mountain lions.

How do I know all this? Well, I read it somewhere, but I'm also a limited nature devotee. That's someone who enjoys being close to wildlife but not too far from room service. I learned to love the beasts and blossoms far away from Arizona in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania, where I'd spend two weeks each year at Boy Scout camp. We were city kids, so the only flora we ever saw sprouted through the cracks in the concrete. The only fauna was what the exterminator missed.

My nature teacher at summer camp was Mr. Coyle. Mr. Coyle was a city adult. He knew no more about wildlife than we did, but he knew a lot about kids.

Mr. Coyle (Mr. Coyle probably had a first name, but because he was an adult and we were kids, we never learned it) would take us youngsters on nature hikes through the woods, ostensibly to educate us. In his own way he did.

On one of our jaunts through the woods, we spotted a gartersnake. It was harmless, but none of us knew that. We never knew there was such a thing as a harmless snake. Of course, we had seen snakes in the city. According to our parents, they were the men who came to our door once a week to collect the rent.

Mr. Coyle took this opportunity to teach us how to safely handle snakes. I was elected to capture the critter so we all could see that reptiles were not treacherous. Mr. Coyle admonished me to pick it up cautiously. "Grab it by the hips," he advised.

So I grabbed it somewhere around the middle of its body where I assumed the hips would be. It never dawned on me until much later in my life that snakes are either all hips or no hips.

In one of those educational strolls through the Pocono wilderness, we came across two mounds of dirt. They appeared to be two graves side by side, one large and one small. Mr. Coyle would stop at the graves and tell us the story about the great Indian chief who was buried there. He was a wise and brave warrior who ruled the people who lived in these mountains for many years. We'd all listen in awe as Mr. Coyle recounted many tales, some testing credulity, about this great chieftain. When he finished on a dramatic point, he 'd turn to continue his walk, but some youngster would ask, "What's the small grave beside that one?"

Mr. Coyle would answer, "Oh, that's the chief when he was a little boy."

Once we came across a large tree that had been cut down. Mr. Coyle used this to teach all of us young Scouts how you could tell the age of a tree by counting the growth circles in the trunk. To demonstrate, Mr. Coyle knelt beside the exposed tree trunk and began: "One-two-three-fourfivesixseven...." His voice became an inaudible mumble as he counted more quickly.

Suddenly, as he got toward the outer part of the tree trunk, he exclaimed, "Oh, my gosh!"

We all said, "What?"

He repeated, "Oh, my gosh!"

We had no idea what was so extraordinary. But obviously something was.

"Who could ever believe this would happen?" Mr. Coyle said.

We didn't know what happened, but we were definitely interested.

"This is really a coincidence," he said.

"What?" we all said.

Slowly and respectfully, Mr. Coyle took off his hat, lit a match, and held it out toward the tree, and sang Happy Birthday to you. Happy Birthday to you. Happy Birthday, dear tree trunk. Happy Birthday to you.

Whenever I see an animal scurry along the ground, or a bird flutter in for a soft landing, or a beautiful blossom on some exotic plant, I think of Mr. Coyle and what sort of terrible joke he would have done about it.