ENHS Nature Trails December 2004 Article 2

President's Column: "Comments on 'Sounds of Silence'"
by David Wagner

Whitey Lueck's piece in this month's Nature Trails reminded me of the time after the 9/11 attacks when all aircraft were grounded. Whitey told me that he really enjoyed that period of silence when he went to his retreat in the mountains. Coincidentally, I was in the heart of the Three Sisters Wilderness at the same time, camping with my daughter. It's interesting to me that I really didn't notice the absence of sound. Only in hindsight did it occur to me that part of my enjoyment of the wilderness was that silence. I learned of the event only days later. Curious . . . how I am annoyed by jet sounds but did not notice their absence. This has made me think about my personal appreciation of nature. It is almost completely visual. I tend to ignore or underappreciate my other senses. I notice sounds often but am not keen on them. Sounds are not that important to somebody who focuses on mosses, flowers, and butterflies. My birding friends, on the other hand (on the other ear), always have their ears open and tuned to bird calls. A geologist has a good sense of specific gravity when hefting a stone; an archaeologist feels the subtleties of artifacts. As a botanist, I use my sense of touch only when feeling the stems of a pair of similar species of desert parsley, one is rough and the other smooth.

 My most under appreciated sense is smell. People who have been on nature walks with me have heard me describe my son as a "noser." Ever since he was a small child, he'd put things to his nose to smell them. I never did that automatically. When I want to observe something closely, I put it under my hand lens. Rarely would I put it under my nose. Only in the past 10 years or so have I been an active noser, since I became interested in mushrooms. Only my sense of smell tells me positively whether or not I've found such delectables such as The Prince or Matsutake. I envy the nose skill of Rob Weiss, a botanist who led a conifer trip this past summer. He has worked so closely with trees that he can detect the difference between the true firs by their smell. I've tried to match his accomplishment and have not yet succeeded.

I have not said anything about taste. Some people are constant tasters, not always a good trait. I do not encourage indiscriminate tasting. Jay Marston, late LCC instructor, told a story of a taster in one of his classes. Standing in a wetland, Jay noticed her nibbling on a stem of water hemlock, one of our most poisonous plants. The rest of the trip was spent getting her to an emergency room to have her stomach pumped. Despite this warning, there is a species of liverwort which I identify positively in the field with a taste test. The peppery Porella is hot on the tip of the tongue while its look-alikes are simply bland or lightly aromatic on the tongue.

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