Shovel Cave Wildlife Center and Museum: The Nest Inspection

“Johnny’s daddy takin’ him fishin’ when he was eight years old. Then came a girl, through the front gate, with a fishin’ pole. Daddy said, ‘Johnny, we can’t just leave he behind.’ And Johnny cried, ‘Take Jimmy Johnson, Timmy Tomson, take my best friend Moe, but don’t take the girl. Don’t take the girl.”

The music blared as rangers Merritt Harrison and Doug Shiner rode through the tall dense forest of Shovel Cave, Oregon. Their job was to check on a local goshawks nest.

“Man, this song is great.” Merritt remarked, turning up the old stereo. Merritt was the newest employee at the Shovel Cave Wildlife Center and Museum. He was fresh out of the academy. His partner assigned to him from their boss, Dale, was Doug. Doug was somewhat of a veteran in the forestry world, or as much as he could be for his young age of thirty eight.

“It’s okay at best. You need to listen to more music like this.” Doug ridiculed, plunging his hand into the glove compartment of their old 1995 olive green Subaru Outback. “Aha!” he cried, pulling a cassette tape labeled, “Ballad of Gen. Custer”. He inserted the cassette and turned up the volume as Norman Greenbaum’s Spirit in the Sky filled the car.

“I hate this.”

“Yeah, you would.” Laughed Doug, as they drove on.

They arrived at the goshawk’s nest around noon. Doug spun his revolver and inserted it into his holster, like he’d seen Clint Eastwood do so many times.

“I doubt you’ll need that. This is a routine nest inspection of an endangered species. All we have to do is…” Merritt started.

“DUCK AND COVER! MOOSE ATTACK FROM THE NORTH!!” bellowed Doug. Merritt threw himself into a nearby bush with his hands over his head and knees close to his chest. Doug laughed as he checked the nest for any signs of damage. ‘I’m just kidding. There hasn’t been a moose up here for like, five months.”

“Moose attacks are not a joke, Doug. There are more than two hundred and thirty deaths per year.” Scolded Merritt, picking himself up off the ground and brushing dirt off his hat.

“Moose attacks are pretty funny, okay. Haven’t you seen literally any Rocky and Bullwinkle episode? Besides, it’s not like while I was joshing around a fox ate the goshawks.” Doug joked, motioning towards the nest. “MOTHER OF PEARL A FOX ATE THE BIRDS!” He stared in disbelief as a rocky mountain red fox finished licking his chops.

“I can’t have this on my record! It’s my first day! We’ve killed those birds! We’ve officially become the cause of death to those birds because of our negligence.” Merritt  panicked.

“Relax, there’s like, at least seven more goshawks in Shovel Cave.” Doug assured, grabbing the fox for rabies examination. “I’m sure ole Dale Wilson will be fine with it. It was only three and half birds.”

“I do not understand you, Shiner. Countless times, you seem to believe that I like you. I don’t like you. You are the most arrogant, self-centered, loggerhead that ever had the agony of working with. You’re reckless with the Ranger Mobile and just last week you discharged your revolver on a nature walk with the elderly. Atop this revolting casserole of failure, you ate my tapioca pudding that was clearly labeled. One more infraction I’m going to demote you to working solely in the local history museum…as a custodian…in the Native American section…by the bathrooms where the local teens release stink bombs.” Dale sighed, looking deeply into Doug’s eyes with an icy stare. Dale had a presence about him that scared everyone in the room he was in. There were local town rumors about him, no of which could be proven. Some said that he bench presses elk and drinks the milk of yak’s straight from the udders. Others say that he killed a grizzly bear with only his icy stare and a box of matches. Still others say that he was abandoned as a young child and raised by oil rig workers. Anyway, Dale Wilson was a stone cold man. “Sigh. How about this, you two can join Landon when he goes into the elementary school. I’ll tell them to be expecting you.”

“Wow, my first day and I’m assigned to an elementary school! Score!”  Merritt hoped as they walked back to the car.

“Yeah, real whoop.”

“Okay, so you’re in charge of telling the children about the local wildlife, Dale said that Landon said that he was doing the local flora, so I’ll present on how to tell the difference between a Maple and a Spruce. WEEE!” squealed Merritt. 

The next day was traumatizing for Doug’s students, boring for Merritt’s students, and meditating for Landon’s students. Landon was a rather chilled out guy. He always wore the same baseball cap and Hawaiian shirt under his Wildlife vest, riddled with environmental pins.

“So children, that’s how a daffodil is like childhood. Any questions? No, groovy.” Concluded Landon. However, Merritt’s lecture was slightly less groovy.

“Now, if a squirrel was to make a nest in a Maple tree, how would that affect our local ecosystem? False, it wouldn’t affect it at all. But say it rested its fragile little noggin in a spruce…well…that could possibly kill all the local dung beetles imported from our sister city, Wakanda. Say, that wouldn’t be a bad thing. But what do you do if you see a squirrel eating a rare species of acorn? You stop it before it goes nuts! Ha, that’s just some arborous humor for you. Ah well, that concludes my lecture. Thank you so much for letting me talk to you.” Merritt concluded. But the scariest class would have to be Doug’s.

“There we were, huddled around the dwindling campfire, fearful for the family of grizzly polar bear hybrids that surrounded us. I turned my flashlight to the left, only to find the remains of our food, scattered across the ground. When I turned back around I saw my friend Jimmy being dragged off. I was terrified. Then I pulled out this very knife and killed them all!”

The kids sat in horror.

“Well, now you know why I’m the custodian here.” Explained Doug to the nearby statue of Sir Quinton Butte, founder of Shovel Cave. “I wonder what would have happened if hadn’t scared that new kid, Merritt?”