Every Feather Tells a Story

On the gray-brown carpet of fallen oak and hickory leaves, flashes of blue caught my eye. Treasures! Feathers! Iridescently blue; how lovely and refreshing on these cast-iron January days!

I picked one up and admired it, then saw more of them and couldn't help but collect them, and then grew uneasy. One feather on the ground, all is well, but this many feathers in one place always signifies a fight to the death. I hoped otherwise, but sure enough there was one bloodied feather as evidence. Nature has taught me not to feel sorrow over dead anything, but I became solemn realizing I was at the spot where a beautiful creature parted from the earth, to serve some greater purpose, I hope, or at least I want to believe.

Guess Who Came to Dinner

A good rain with thunder came yesterday, so today I went to Waterfall #5 to get waterfall glamour photos; It's just off the lane, down a wooded slope, and opposite a cliff 15 feet high. At the bottom of the slope I saw a mound of fur with no body. Thought it might have been an opossum. Wrong. Bones and legs showed that something trapped and feasted on a small deer there. My guess is a coyote, but many creatures could have joined in. Not too far away was a mound of fur on a log, suggesting a hawk or other winged predator might have helped pick it clean.

In other local news, the one day of heavy rain breached and wiped out the beaver dam, in part because the dam created a wide pool with a narrow neck. Rushing water would have passed over and through the dam with great force. Now the creek is left with an excellent swimming hole.