Wildlife Watching

Posted on 30 Jul 2023 @ 9:10pm by Chief Petty Officer Ibis Xeri
Edited on on 06 Feb 2024 @ 10:33pm

Mission: M3 - Into the Deep
Location: Southern New York, Sol
Timeline: Backstory, a few weeks after "A Sprout in the Gunks"
1449 words - 2.9 OF Standard Post Measure

After dinner in the busy camp cantina, Ibis had gone up to the station to get her last activity assignment. After being on several accompanied hikes, Counselor Fanna had approved all of Ibis’ requests for unaccompanied path checks for her open activities since. They weren’t very far afield and every Gunks camper wore a small emergency sensor. Ibis appreciated the freedom and especially liked taking the walk on one of the small loops after meal times.

Sadly, this one was going to be her last before her parents would collect her at the gate. In the waning evening light, Ibis walked more slowly, as if she could stretch out the twilight by taking her time. She filled out the research entry required for each walk, marking down the temperature (hot), humidity (high), air pressure (low enough to forecast another shower), and wind speed (barely). She paused at the rain meter and it had a little collected from the drizzle earlier. Ibis took a volume reading and tipped the glass out. It dribbled over some mushrooms at the base of the post it was attached to.

She knelt to identify the mushrooms. These were different from the puff balls or capped ones or the field ones she saw. These ones had thin, delicate necks and little ends like they wanted to be flowers. They were a cool white, almost blue. The padd she had was recording only. She would have to find the reference for them later so she took a photo. Then a few more from other angles, thinking what a pretty drawing she could make of it later, as she often drew from her photo train journal while curled into her sleeping bag at night. Absorbed in the unique discovery, she forgot for now that her bedroll and bag were waiting for her to pick up and leave.

She watched some gnats swirling. There was a little bit of a swampy bog nearby where they tended to be heavier in the grasses. The voices of bullfrogs reminded her that there were others that liked the bugs a fair bit more than she did. An outline of a heron standing off in the tall weeds reminded her, too, that there were those who didn’t mind the song of bullfrogs. She took an image of the heron. It didn’t come out very clearly. She wondered what sort of equipment it would take to get better imaging in the waning light.

Ibis took out her sketchbook instead. It had been badly battered and a few times soggied over the weeks. Once it had taken a spill from a canoe when some rowdy boys had started a game of splashing one another with paddles and then waging a battle that ended up with one boy, Andrew Wilson, hopping from the other canoe into hers- succeeding in tipping both. It seemed like a day didn’t go by without Wilson getting them into some kind of trouble.

In a few strokes of the remaining nub of her pencil, Ibis captured the elegant neck and stance of the heron. Ibis frowned. She hoped between her quick sketch on the crinkled paper and her dark, out of focus photo she could better recreate it later. She looked back up at the heron and observed it move, somehow both elegantly and with a certain jerking motion. It seemed to study her back with that harsh, yellow eye and she felt the sense of inquisitiveness before it lifted off in a powerful wing beat on a long span of feathers and swept off out of sight.

Probably in the direction of the lake, where the bird could hunt without a girl disturbing the frogs.

Ibis continued on the path, picking a handful of raspberries from the prickly brambles. They were coming into season now and the canes were dense with them. She never passed them by without partaking, although she was careful to inspect each one for bugs and the all too common tiny green inchworms.

A slithering tail flashed over some leaves and Ibis froze, her wide eyes tracing the motion into the cover of a gnarled old tree root system. Her mind had registered the swift s-curve as concerning but the reflex quickly passed. The snake was a tiny little ribbon snake and when she tilted to look into its little retreat, she saw it coiled up, licking the air to see what it thought of her. Both were satisfied that neither posed much threat, and the snake allowed Ibis to take her photograph.

As she restowed the padd, Ibis noted all the broken bark around the base of the tree. Something had practically peeled it, starting from much taller than she could stand, and whoever it had been, they had broken up the lower branches as well. Maybe the something’s name was Andrew Wilson, she thought, rolling her eyes as she pressed forward, gathering up one of the broken branches. She completely missed noticing the long claw marks carved into the other side of the tree, which would have absolved Andrew of the vandalism to nature she was ascribing to him.

As the trail disappeared into more of a dense mossy ground alongside the gently rippling creek, ibis waved the stick around like a switch, discouraging the flies, but also anticipating the nearly invisible nets the spiders spun up so quickly since the last visitors had happened through these trees. Coming to the stream, Ibis took off her shoes, tying the laces to her knapsack. She had small feet and they weren’t much to carry. She appreciated the way the moss felt cool and depressed like a dense carpet. When she waded carefully on the slippery rocks nestled in the stream bed, the water was frosty and refreshing. She knelt to watch the water bugs skate around on the surface of the water, and moved a rock gently to see the little crayfish skitter away.

It was then that she felt someone watching her, seeing in her mind's eye an image of herself crouched over the stream.

Ibis stood up slowly and looked off to her right among the bushes on the rise. There was a huge dark shadow, hunched low, and unmoving. The sweat of the warm evening rolled down the back of her neck and let the light evening breeze chill all of her goosebumps as she watched the still, black form, seeing herself through this stranger's vision.

“H-hello?”

There was a breathy snort and a head lifted. The heavy snout of a stout black bear turned her direction, and she watched him work his teeth and lips as if he could make some comment on happening on her in the woods.

Ibis stood very still, her hand moving to her alert key on the identity tag on her overalls. But she didn’t press the key. She didn’t press it because the bear, distracted as he was with flicking his ears to discourage the flies landing on them, didn’t seem intent on making any aggressive moves. She thought he felt rather relaxed, really, just contented in this patch of the woods as she was. For some reason, she waved at him. It seemed rude not to.

The bear lifted a heavy padded paw back, returning the hail.

I wish I could leave you something to eat, but I’m not meant to be feeding the bears. She thought in his direction.

The bear didn’t seem to understand the words so much as the idea of food. She watched his mouth hang open in a pant, and then the bear smacked his lips a couple of times.

Oh! Ibis suddenly remembered something and her expression turned bright. But there is a very nice stand of bramble berries, if you're mindful of the prickles.

Ibis thought off in the direction of the ample berry patch and the bear lifted off his heavy haunches and made a slow gait down the ravine, over the stream ahead of her and ambled through the trees, back in the direction she had come.

As the black bear looked back over his massive shoulder at her, Ibis had the impression that a few berries might be a welcome snack and that the bear appreciated the tip.

The sky was turning shades of purple and the shaded old woods grew dimmer still. She slid her shoes back onto her wet feet and got back onto the proper trail, headed back to camp, and back to home. One last glance over her shoulder rewarded her with the flicker of lightning bugs twinkling in the woods.