A Walk in the Woods

Some time ago, while at a freinds house, who had 200 acres of woods behind their house, I decided to go birding while everyone else swam. Somewhere in there, I could hear a Baltimore Oriole. (This was, by the way, the very first time I had said, "I can hear so and so bird in there, let me go find it." and be correct with my guess as to which bird it was.) With my camera and my net, I set off for the beginging of the woods, where the only swarm of tiny bighting insects on the whole property buzzed. I broke through them, with quite alot of swatting, and headed for a hedge of thorn brush. This took some time, for, trying to tackle such a passive enemy is not as easy as it may seem. If the huge thorns weren't tearing me up, they were jammed in the rubber of my sneaker, tripping me up and forcing me to grab at the thorny branches. But the oriole pushed me on. Now the song was so close, not so high, and a little ahead of me. I stood still right beyond the thorns, and squinted in the glare of sunlight that was cast on me from a break in the leafage up high. (Here it would have been really nice to have Monica with me, to spot the bird out with her nifty birding binocs!) Suddenly the oriole flew from the foliage above, down to a bush near me. I got a good glimse of it, and even a picture as it flew back up to the branches. Since it was so small, and far away, I could not get great pictures of it, so I will not display any of my photos, except for one when it's flying. But a good photo wasn't on my mind at that moment; it was the rightness of my guess, that made me happy!

For the hour or so that I wandered about in the wood, I could still hear the oriole. I watched it from time to time, when I could see it, but, for the most part, now, I was trying to figure out another puzzle. I heard a strange song I had never heard before. (Monica, if you are laughing when you hear the rest of this, I won't be surprised!) On the way to find the owner of the strange song, I found alot of annoying house wrens and sparrows, who drowned out the song I was trying to hear. The "strange" bird took me all over the place. I could see the branches move, and I could see that it was a greyish bird, but is was so hard to see exactly what it was. Then, suddenly, it came into full view and I almost cried out in humiliation! Now I was glad that no one was with me, because, boy would I have been embaraced! I was a catbird! You can only immagine my frustration.

Taking a quick photo of a tiger moth catterpillar (photo bellow), I hurried deeper into the forest, lest somebody in the yard see me, and come follow. I had an insecent dear fly buzzing around and around and around and a-r-o-u-n-d my head. No amount of running, swatting, or shaking of my head would send it flying off to find another sweatier human being. This fly was caught in orbit around my sweaty hair, which already had pine sap, leaves and twigs in it from the dense forest I was currently traversing. As I walked and swatted, I thought, and looked, and saw and mused. I walked deeper than ever into the forest, and kept promising I'd bend over and turn over the next log I saw, to collect some insects, but I never did, and I don't know why. Perhaps I was just too hot and sticky, and that fly was making me dizzy as it traveled along it's circular path. As I walked, I began to be aware of a strange noise. It sounded like someone doing that armpit suction noise, that boys especially like to do. For a while, I listened and walked cautiousely around the noise. I didn't hear any twigs breaking. I heard no sound of feet, wings, beak, or anything that had to do with bird, beast or human. The sound sounded chillingly human, yet, it kept creeping nearer and nearer seemingly without means of transportion. I will admit I was scared, because, first of all, the sound was so familiar, but I could not place my finger on it, and second of all, because the sound kept coming closer, but only the sound, not the feet or wings or whatever this creature possesed for moving. A snake? A Human? A bird? No! How could it be? I retreated past the thorn brush barier, which was easier to cross, now that I had broken most of the branches blocking my path. But then, curriosity got the better of my fear, and I recrossed, and with stealth crept back to where I had been standing. I crept closser. Fear struck again, when the sound came from behind me. I turned, and just as I did so, a small brown and white spotted fawn popped out of the brush, sneezing! I was so startled, I dropped my net and braced myself! But, immediately, I smiled and and lifted my camera to my eye. (Photo below.) I got one good shot of it, before it had sated it's curiosity and was bounding (and sneezing) happily away.

The last thing I did before it was time to go, was take a photo of a cranefly that was sitting so still on a leaf. The dear fly continued to torment me, now breaking it's orbital path and lunging for some flesh hear or there. I broke into a run at the edge of the woods, and the wind I created pulled the reluctant wings into a different orbit around some other unlucky creature.

When I showed everyone the picture of the dear my freinds, who live in the house, all said the same thing: "I never knew we had dear back there, and so close to the house at that!"

Tiger Moth Caterpillar