Naturalists think outside the cubicle
Snakes on a plain

By Paula Burkes

Published: October 12, 2008

As a boy, Neil Garrison spent most of his days outdoors — and usually barefoot. While his father was helping build Lake Eufaula, his family lived in Briartown, a tiny community northwest of Stigler. If Garrison wasn’t in school, he was playing out in the sticks or noodling for catfish in the creek.

It’s not surprising he chose to work around nature. For 30 years, Garrison has worked as a naturalist for Oklahoma City’s Martin Park Nature Center, 5000 W Memorial.

"I’m part farmer (I raise bunny rabbits, oak trees and wildflowers). I’m part land reserve manager (I supervise trail maintenance, including mowing, trimming trees and cutting fallen trees). But mostly, I’m a teacher,” said Garrison, sitting on a toppled tree trunk with a prairie king snake wrapped around his arm. "I get face to face with people to teach them about their environment.”

Garrison’s students largely are fifth-graders, some of whom visited so often they became like family. One boy used to ride his bike from Piedmont every Saturday and Sunday to open and close the park with Garrison.

Along with teaching others, Garrison is continually learning. His latest project is teaching himself to play a didgeridoo, a hollowed out trunk from an Australian woolly butt tree that sounds like a fog horn.

At Oxley Nature Center in Tulsa, director and naturalist Eddie Reese similarly enjoys his work.

"It’s great,” Reese said. "I can be walking a trail with kids and we’ll see a bobcat in front of us, or they’ll see deer tracks and get excited.”

One time, after an early morning rain, Reese spied the red spectrum in a rain drop on a leaf 100 yards away.

"I would have missed it if I wasn’t in that exact place at that exact time. It was so striking. It looked like a Christmas light,” he said.

The downsides to the job are working weekends and, for astronomy and other programs, some nights, Reese said. And then there are days like Wednesday, when he was short two staff members and one volunteer, had a guide get lost, a bridge break and a three-hour meeting with architects about remodeling the park building.

"Still, here I’m out in the woods, versus a cubicle somewhere,” Reese said.

"I can breathe fresh air, listen to a bullfrog sing, see a Mississippi Kite soar overhead or watch a herd of deer graze across the prairie.”

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