This morning I went on a brisk walk up Sapling Mountain. I had intended to get a really early start and be part of daybreak, but apparently I slept through my alarm. I headed out at about 7:15 with my mind set on walking to the crossroads (up on Sapling Mtn.) and back for the purpose of cardiovascular exercise. I enjoyed the feel of the cool, damp morning air as I huffed up the mountain, and I enjoyed the warming of my body and the quickening of my heart rate. I walked with my thoughts.
Well, I got up to the crossroads, turned around, and was bopping back down the mountain. About halfway down, I finally remembered that a morning walk in the woods is a fantastic opportunity to pay attention to my suroundings and inhabit the present moment. There are so many other opportunities to walk around with my head part way up my ass- like in Asheville or at Ingles, but being in the woods calls for some good old fashioned awareness, mainly because there's just so bloody much happening to be aware of. And interesting stuff too. Flushing fungi. Foraging fowl. Puddling butterflies. Troublesome turds. Tricky tracks. Creative adaptation. Natural cause and effect.
And relevant too! How could studying the rest of nature ever be considered merely a hobby? Our human community and individual selves are just as subject to the laws and patterns of nature as the next guy, be that next guy a lichen or a female luna moth.
So I finally remembered to pay attention, and it was like someone flipped on the sound switch. There was a two-note high pitched bird sound coming from the top of a 6 foot embankment that bordered the road I was walking. I didn't recognize the sound, so I stopped and looked for the bird. The call sounded over and over. I stalked closer and closer to the embankment, each time stopping to recalibrate my depth perception of sound and trying to narrow in on the exact location of its source. (Oh, to have ears at different levels like an owl for this very purpose!) It drives me crazy how a bird can just hide right in front of my eyes in some foliage. I stalked closer, determined.
In the meantime, on the other side of the embankment, all manners of birds were going crazy sounding their best birdy alarms. A male cardinal frantically swooped down to an overhead branch and absolutely went apeshit. Woodpeckers downhill were warbling out some dramatic alarms, and left and right could be heard a symphony of random "cheeps" and "chirps" and "buzzes." I confusedly wondered to myself 'is all that racket because of me?'
My silent question was answered a moment later when a bobcat's cat and forebody came slinking up to the top of the embankment from the other side. Dark, gritty, wild. That cat took one look at me and manuevered a silent and seamless 180, hightailing (or rather bob-tailing) it back out of there toward Juanita Stump's place.
Well, I'll be.
With the help of some sturdy exposed tree roots, I hoisted myself over the embankment to look for the bobcat, which I knew I wouldn't see again. I could hear the path it was taking down the mountain through some underbrush by the traveling treetop parade of interspecies bird alarm noises. I discovered a sort of parallel 4 wheeler road on the other side of the embankment. Also from that side I could easily see the source of the mysterious 2-note bird call- a fledgling cardinal sitting helpless on the ground at the top of the embankment, its little undeveloped head tuft fluffing up as much as birdly possible as it hollered out.
Or maybe not helpless. Somehow that little guy's life was spared by my remembering to pay attention in the woods. Not that I favor the life of a baby cardinal over the life of a bobcat, but a hunt was intersected there. Two cats at the top of the food chain met on an embankment from parallel stalking experiences. And I got the bird, which I consider just a random stroke of luck because there is no doubt in my partially unaware mind who the better stalker is.
The rest of the walk was spent getting rained on and enjoying the spectacular beauty of the scenery. Old cabins and barns hint of dusty memories of a time when the human residents of this mountain paid attention to the woods as a way of life. An old store sets on top of Chapel Hill, making a home for spiders and birds. Deeply hued ironweed blooms in its time, setting the stage for the fall of another summer.
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