PHOTOS AND TEXT BY ROB BETTASO

It is the last morning of our four day trip down below the Mogollon Rim but up above Roosevelt Reservoir; on the Tonto National Forest. In the pale early light, I’m lying on my cot and looking up at the tall trees growing in this mountain valley. Along the bottom of the valley runs a small stream, in a roughly east-west direction. The slopes of the hills and mountains that rise to our south (which therefore have a northern “aspect”) are mostly pines and fir trees. To the north (on the much drier, southern “aspect”) the trees are mostly junipers and oaks. Spreading out in both directions from the stream itself, and on up along the valley floor, grows a rich mix of alders, boxelders and sycamore trees. These stream-side trees comprise the over-story of what is known as the riparian zone – a rare, fragile, and diminishing habitat in our arid American Southwest.

While I am admiring the riparian trees from my cot, my mind wanders back to one of my early years in Elementary School where, one day, our teacher decided that it was just too nice an afternoon to sit inside and that we should finish up the day by having the art portion of class outdoors. She instructed us to do a pencil sketch of anything we saw around us. Some (many) of the kids quickly ran to the playground equipment (slides, swings, et cetera) and while the teacher was admonishing them to: “get off the monkey-bars and start your art-work,” I walked toward a nearby shade-tree and sat down to draw the big, old poplar.

Eventually, the teacher got around to where I was sitting and examined my progress thus far: I had drawn the tree’s trunk, main branches, and had started on the smaller branches and twigs. On a few of the twigs, I had tried out the first of what I had known would be many, many stems and leaves. The teacher took one look at my rendering and in a tone of some anguish, said: “Robbie, what are you doing; you can’t possibly think you are going to draw each and every twig and each and every leaf?” Her tone embarrassed me and I offered a weak retort: “Sure, why not?” She ended our conversation with an exasperated: “Well, go ahead and try but it will take you hours to finish the way you’ve started and we only have another few minutes until school is done for the day.”

I felt foolish and realized that she was correct, there was no way to do what I had intended. I flipped the page over and drew a simple and straight trunk, made a cottonball top to represent the foliage, and then drew a few squiggly lines to indicate that a flock of birds were flying out from the tree and to wherever it was that they needed to go. Luckily, my feeble artwork was never collected, as the teacher had given up on trying to keep the kids off the playground equipment and, before long, had simply yelled to the group that the day was over, and that class was dismissed.

My thoughts shift from my childhood remembrance back to the green world around me and to a House Wren that has caught my attention as it flies not far overhead and then lights on a branch of a nearby oak. Soon, the wren flies from her perch and suddenly ducks into a hole in the trunk of the oak. The hole appears to be a natural cavity and before long the wren re-emerges, flies off, but soon returns with a beak full of grasses that the wren then takes into the cavity. Clearly, a nest is being constructed and I considered this observation a most excellent way to begin my day.

I kick off my sleeping bag, do a spasmodic full-body stretch, and get up off the cot. It is time for coffee! I continue to take in the world around me and note that in comparison to the fully leafed-out oaks, the sycamore trees, which are also common in our camp, have yet to do much more than break their buds and unfurl some of their small and young leaves. I am impressed by the differential in the development, but it doesn’t appear to matter much to the birds, as a pair of Red-faced Warblers seem to be enjoying the view from atop a stark and sinuous sycamore. Both birds, likely a male and female, flit and chase each other through the canopy of the various oaks but also returned again and again to the nearly bare sycamores.

I know that the Red-faced Warblers aren’t cavity nesters, but I’m not really sure where they do lay their eggs. I drink my coffee while watching them but never learn the secret of where they will eventually raise their young. It’s another one of Nature’s mysteries that will have to remain shrouded in uncertainty, at least until I return home and can consult a field guide.

It is not surprising that many people gravitate toward watching birds when they begin to take an interest in the natural world. Birds are colorful and they are also relatively common and easy to see. Less so for the other vertebrates: mammals, herps, and fishes. The same bias seems to hold for invertebrates: bright, beautiful butterflies and beetles often garner all of the attention, while drabber and less visible members of other insect groups (plus the myriad species of worms, arachnids, crustaceans, mollusks, et cetera) often go over-looked.

In the plant world, yup, again, the showy flowering forbs and bushes hog all of the attention while the plants with less conspicuous flowers (some grasses and certain trees, for example) only seem to attract a passing glance. But then again, this is an over-simplification, as I would be willing to bet that there are few among us who haven’t gazed up in wonder at a towering Douglas Fir, a shimmering Quaking Aspen, or a gnarled and enduring Gambel Oak.

Growing up in Michigan, one of my early favorite trees was the American Sycamore. In some neighborhoods they were a common street tree and they caught one’s attention due to their massive height and girth; never mind their broad, lobed leaves, patchy bark, and odd fruits -- which some folks called “button-balls.”

When I moved to Arizona, I was happy to see that another species of sycamore grew way out here in the arid southwestern U.S and in the northern portions of Mexico – the Arizona Sycamore. True, this species prospered only in the relatively wetter and shadier canyons and valleys, but clearly, it was a vital component of these important riparian habitats. In fact, it seems like many of the notable Arizona critters that I saw for the first time in my life, were in sycamore groves. A partial list of just a few of the representative vertebrates that I saw in such groves would include the rare and beautiful Spikedace (a species of native, warm-water fish); the cryptically colored Canyon Tree Frog; the mild-mannered Black-tailed Rattlesnake; the show-stopping, gaudy, Elegant Trogon; and the odd, monkey-like Coati-mundi.

I finish my coffee and walk over to the two areas in which my camping buds (Scott and Jeff) have their kitchens set up. They are cooking their breakfasts and neither of them are in any particular hurry to pull up stakes, leave our private patch of paradise, and head back to their homes in Phoenix. They tell me they are going eat and then begin a very leisurely take-down of camps. Since my take-down will be much quicker than theirs, I decide I will go for a bit of a stroll and then come back and have a quick bite of food before I spend the 15 minutes it takes me to load up all of my gear and “put it on the road.”

I wind up walking for a longer period of time than I had expected, and when I return to camp Jeff and Scott have all their gear taken down and stowed in their trucks with the exception of one table with a camp stove on it. They are both standing around the table and as I walk up to see what they are doing I am surprised to see them using the stove’s gas burner to heat the tip of a large screw-driver from one of their truck tool-kits. I then see that they are putting the finishing touches on a plaque that they have made by using the hot screw-driver tip to burn the words “Camp Sycamore” into a left-over piece of firewood that Scott had brought with him from home (some of the scraps of firewood are shaped like rustic sign-boards).

I chuckle, clasp each of them by one shoulder and tell them that they true craftsmen. I’m duly impressed by their resourcefulness and I think that they are a bit proud of handiwork as well. They hang their marker on a tree and we all begin getting the last of our gear loaded up. I make a quick couple of PB&J sandwiches to eat while I make the drive out on the long dirt road that will take me back to Highway 260 and on to Pinetop.

The three of us part ways when we get to the Young Road, with Jeff and Scott heading south and me heading north. Soon, I cross a stream and my mind struggles to remember a bit of verse by the poet Langston Hughes. Parts of the poem come back to me and overall the imagery pertains to rivers that Hughes has known from around the world. I suppose that his poem is only partially about actual rivers, as there are also many layers and hidden depths to what Hughes has to say and, to some extent, the rivers in the poem are perhaps more metaphor, than actual waterways.



I make a mental note to look up the poem when I get home. I continue driving and soon leave the riparian vegetation behind me and am sad to say good-bye to the sycamores. Someday perhaps, I will attempt a poem that is all about trees that I have known and, should I write such a poem, you can bet that the Arizona Sycamore will play a prominent role.