There Is Nothing Here

Past Burns, Oregon, winding south on 205, the early spring landscape overwhelms us. The craggy snout of Steens Mountain pokes through boiling, massive clouds.  Miles-long rain curtains open and close on vast scenes of high desert prairie, volcanic rimrock, and pluvial lake beds. At highway speed it is empty, brooding, and ancient. Except for the sagebrush flailing in the wind and the tumbleweeds bouncing along the fence lines, there is nothing here.

 

Slow down. Make the turn into the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. Twist and turn, rise and fall on a two-lane road.  Wait, what was that? Stop! Find the binoculars, find the camera, but… too late. Whatever it was has flown, ducked, or vanished into rocky shadows.

Go slower. Some kind of bird is strafing a marshy field. What is that? Fumble, fumble, binoculars and camera are juggled in midair between us. Quick, quick get a shot. Get a glimpse.  Get SOMETHING. Click, click, click. A blurry dot streaks away. Lynn takes a breath, spins her lenses, and checks the viewfinder to confirm her disappointment. Nada.   

OK, this time Lynn puts the camera on her lap, with the correct lens and other settings and whatever other alchemy photographers employ to take  “the perfect shot”. Eric’s myopic eyes are glued to the binoculars. Ready? Yep, we’re ready now. Sure. We are down to a crawl, searching for safe pullouts (rare on these roads), scanning the fields, the skies, the road, the rearview mirrors in a vertiginous Waltz of the Eyeballs. Often, Eric has to pull away from the binoculars to quell the queasiness of seeing the scenery, magnified umpteen times, whiz by. Again, things flit past us too quickly. We’ll have to stop - even though we still need to get Maxine, our RV mothership, parked and hooked up and the pets fed. We’ll have to stop - even though we’re scheduled for orientation and training the next day on minding the Friends of Malheur gift shop – The Crane’s Nest. We must stop and forego an early dinner. We MUST STOP or see nothing here at all.

At last, perched on a slim bit of gravel roadside, as far as we can go without toppling into the deep marshy ditch alongside, we come to rest.  And then it begins. Some invisible conductor tap-tap-taps a baton. A cough, a tweet. Then, a red-winged blackbird lights on a fence (click, got him!)  His solitary trilling chord signals the start of a kind of overture. A pheasant peaks through the brush. Now a kestrel spins down to a telephone wire. Right in front of us, a curlew pokes the soggy wetland.

 Just a bit further, a shining, emerald-headed mallard peeks up from his reedy cul-de-sac (click, click, click, breathe, click, click- got them!).

Already, we’re being rewarded for our stillness. All around us is a river of life, but it begrudges a quick reconnoiter.  It is a full symphony of sights, sounds, and smells that must be attended closely. As we quietly and respectfully take our seats, further symphonic movements come to us. Snow geese, in huge white clouds, fall and then explode skyward in the fields around us. 

Cranes squawk and dance and take wing. 

A marmot pops out of some rimrock to sunbathe and scratch.

A fox peeks at us and then vanishes. Eagles and hawks come and go.  So much life. A hundred photos would not suffice. At dusk, the finale comes. A rondo of silhouettes weaves and then blend into darkening skies. A sonata of peeps, chirps, and squawks die away. But for the wind and the evening light, punctuated by a solitary hooting owl, there is nothing here.