Confessions of a Tour Guide

Today I hid out in an Alcatraz tunnel. People overwhelmed me, so I strode with purpose beyond a barricade and looked out at the bay alone through dusty, rusty windows in a big, empty building. Then I stopped in the gunnite-lined tunnel and stooped down to watch a big fat banana slug with a blob of dirt at the end of his tail (or should I say "his and her"?--they're hermaphrodites). I really just didn't want to come out and face what Ranger Jose calls "the teething masses." I watched its tentacles grow longer and shorter, its mouth parts explore the gravelly ground, the slow curve of its slime trail.

At last I came out, but even then I was hiding out. I kept looking beyond the visitors at wildlife. The three baby ravens have learned to fly and were soaring about the island with quavery croaks. Three fuzzy gull chicks slept in a ball like a big clump of lint, while mom slept nearby, head tucked under wing in midafternoon. The cormorant colony looked busy with long undulating necks and beaks, as birds dove into the water, flew back to the cliffs, tended dependent young or brooded slower nests.

I do like people, really, but sometimes visitors at play tire me out more than wildlife quietly getting down to business.