Undetected

Cora and her parents had just moved into a small cabin at the edge of a forest known to some as the Pristine Pines. While her mom and dad were busy unpacking boxes and arranging furniture, Cora decided to explore the woods.

She glanced out the window and saw that the sun was shining in a sky that was brilliantly blue. She knew that both the sky and the sun were deceiving, and the crisp air would sting her cheeks as soon as she stepped out.

Cora ran to her room and tore through the moving boxes in search of her warm wool base layers. She quickly remembered that she had packed them in her suitcase, along with the rest of her winter gear, so it would be easily accessible in the chaos of putting the house together.

When she had change into wool, with fleece on top, Cora hopped into her snow pants, pulled on her boots and pushed her arms through her jacket sleeves. She grabbed a pair of mittens and a hat from her backpack, then zipped it shut, and slipped the straps over her arms. Cora liked to be prepared for anything, so each pocket of her pack was filled with all the things she might possibly need. She yelled to let her parents know she was leaving, then darted out the door.

Cora blew out a long, slow breath and watched as a vapor cloud floated from her mouth. She was one of those kids who wasn’t bothered by the weather. It didn’t matter if it was frigidly cold, or hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk, Cora could manage just fine. The same went for rain, wind, snow, mud, and anything in between Cora couldn’t stand to be confined by four walls and a roof for long. She just had to be out there.

Trudging through nearly knee deep snow, Cora made her way to the backyard. She remembered seeing a deer trail back there the other day and she wanted to follow it into the pine forest. The deer tracks were fresh, as was the large pile of oval shaped droppings she had to step around. Cora hoped this meant that she would see a deer.

As soon as she cross the boundary from backyard to woods, the dee-dee-deeing of the chickadees was impossible to miss. She had definitely triggered the forest’s home alarm system, and the birds were keenly aware of her presence. Cora also picked up on the nasally yank-yank-yank of the nuthatches, and her heart swelled. She loved nuthatches, and the way they could perch upside down.

Though the treetops were all atwitter, Cora felt herself relaxed. The tension in her shoulders softened. She knew the birds would settle down soon, once they realized she wasn’t a threat.

The snow made it hard to determine if there was a trail through the forest. If one existed, it wasn’t used often. Cora hadn’t found any other boot prints for as far as her eyes could see.

She traipsed along, pausing when she heard drumming from above . She took her binoculars out of her backpack, and looking through the lenses, scanned the branches in search of the source of the sound. She located the bright red crest of a pileated woodpecker right away. Cora turned the thumb wheel on her binoculars to bring the bird into focus. Just as she had them adjusted for a crystal clear view, the woodpecker hitched to the right, moving just out of sight.

Cora stepped left, and the pileated moved again. She remembered how her papa always said a person was more likely to hear a pileated woodpecker, than see one. He called them elusive, and she felt lucky any time she caught a glimpse of one.

A gust of wind blew, disturbing the powdery snow that covered the branches of an old red pine. Cora lifted her face to the sky and smiled as the cascading snow dusted her cheeks. The treetops swayed in the breeze, casting shadows that danced across the ground.

Cora gasped when she came across a line of fox tracks. She knew the tracks belonged to a fox, and not a dog, or coyote, because of the way the hind feet fell directly where the front feet were placed. She followed the tracks for a little while, until she became distracted by a cacophony of cawing crows. They seemed to be filling the pine trees one by one, and Cora wished she knew what their assorted rattles, clicks, and harsh caws were trying to say. The racket grew even louder, and all at once, the crows took to flight. Cora’s eye caught a flapping motion in a tree to her right. A pair of large grey wings lifted a barred owl into soundless flight. The crows cawed louder still as they mobbed the owl, chasing it out of the pines.

Cora wondered if the owl lived in that tree. She plodded through the deep snow and crouched beneath the conifer, searching for white wash, and pellets. There wasn’t evidence of either, and she decided that the owl must have been passing through. Cora picked up a pine cone from the ground and then removed her mittens. With bare hands, she began to tear the pine cone apart. A red squirrel chittered angrily at her from the next tree over, and guilt washed over Cora. The pine cone was probably part of the squirrel’s winter food stash. 

“Sorry,” Cora called, dropping the cone. ​

She slid her hands back inside her mittens and ​began to follow the fox tracks back to where they had started. When she noticed a stump, she brushed the snow off and sat down. Cora pulled out a pad of paper and a pen. She scribbled some notes about the deer trail and droppings, and the fox tracks. She sketched the pileated woodpecker, the crow/owl chase, and the red squirrel who had scolded her. 

Cora was writing some questions that she wanted to remember to ask her papa about the crows when the hairs on her neck stood up. She could sense that she wasn’t alone. She turned around slowly, and there, standing 10 feet away, was a deer.​

Cora froze, her heart pounding in her chest. She wasn’t scared, but she was surprised. The deer locked eyes with her, bobbed it’s head up and down, and snorted, causing a cloud of water vapor to escape from its nostrils. It wasn’t very big, and Cora guessed it was one of last spring’s fawns.​

“Hello,” she whispered. ​

The deer held her gaze for a few seconds more, and then turned, and dashed away. Cora watched until it was out of sight. When her heartbeat had slowed to a more normal pace, she packed up her things, and headed for home. She couldn’t wait to tell her parents about all that she’d observed. As she turned onto the deer trail that would bring her to the backyard, a coyote slinked away behind her, undetected.