A tail on a trail

He needed the walk. Walking was good for both the body and the spirit, getting both moving was an ideal way to force himself out of the spiral of depression he found himself in. The greenery of the woods had his eyes primed to find movement, and creatures indeed hid between leaves, rewarding his sharp vision with prolegs and silken hideaways. He sometimes wished he was a larvae, able to grow fat from leaves rather than processed sugars. Then transformation would be easier, programmed into biology instead of something he needed a prescription and working memory for.

He was trying not to think about his body and how it failed him. He was outdoors! He was witnessing a spider snack on a caterpillar. He saw flies mate. He continued hiking down the path he had walked hundreds of times before. His eyes were scanning the terrain around him for snakes, frogs, spiders, dogs and their owners who he hoped to avoid...

He had trekked this trail before, which was why he dreaded the possibility of seeing dog walkers. Not every dog was even leashed, despite the laws, and even fewer of them were well trained enough to heel when asked. The barking was tolerable - the jumping on him, less so. He was trying to not think about dogs since he couldn't hear any headed his way. Just the chirping of birds, thinking of which reminded him of earlier in the week when one young bird tried attacking him through a closed window. He hoped that bird wasn't badly injured by the mistake. He had his phone recording the birds he currently heard - a warbler, a vireo, song sparrows, and the everpresent American robins. Not bad.

He could feel silk brush against the hair on his skin, which meant he either was an anchor for caterpillars or had stepped through a spider's web. He hated the sensation, unable to find the culprit. Although, he did find one green inchworm dangling by his elbow, so maybe that had been the culprit. He placed said inchworm on a leave, unsure whether the caterpillar would eat that plant. If not, it could probably find the plant it did need to eat from, and regardless, the walker wasn't a plant of any sort. He was a human moving through space, through the woods. He was not the proper anchor for this caterpillar, which began its descent from the leaf he had place it upon almost instantly.

He watched a braconidae wasp saw their ovipositor into an oak tree, another unsuspecting larvae beneath the bark likely being victimized. Parasitoids were oh so weird and wonderful, he thought to himself, grateful humanity was not a host to that specific nightmare.

When he heard bullfrogs calling, their sounds like great deep burps, the only sign of their presences, he knew he was in the right spot. This was why he had walked, to make it to the bridge where the dam stood. He stood, legs tired from the exercise that had led him here, but his eyes were still scanning the duckweed for something other than the splashes and bubbles of bullfrogs. He knew from the teeth marks in the trees further down the path that beavers had to live nearby. He just didn't know how to find them. He thought maybe standing still and silent, maybe if he waited long enough a splash or ripple too large to possible be a frog may occur.

He did indeed see a splash too large for a frog, only to realize by the plaid inside the circle by the surface of the water that a turtle had made a dive underwater. He hoped the turtle's behavior wasn't due to his presence. Maybe he could, if he stayed just as still and silent, coax the turtle towards feeling safer, returning to the log it had been basking on.

Then again, predators likely also stayed incredibly still and silent, until they didn't. Humans were predators of the worst sort, sectioning off habitat like the entire world belonged to us. Maybe he was part of the problem, he thought to himself, his own mind at war with itself. Guilt wrestled with reason - he hadn't made the path, he just used it. He tried to build his yard into a habitat, his parents just often mowed over his efforts. He wondered what predators ate turtles, if the blue heron he sometimes saw overhead would see the dark blur of motion underwater as a delicious meal.

He looked overhead, and spotted a yellow warbler. He scanned the horizon, but couldn't see any beaver, just shadows and dark spots that were either tadpoles or fish. He could hear the yellow warbler, chirping, snd he watched it, smiling. This was exactly what he needed. The wind wasn't blowing so the water was calm, which meant if he saw splashes, he would know something alive was moving. It might be a water strider, as most of the ripples were, but he was alive. He was surrounded by life. Maybe not human life, but humans were overrated.

He startled as he heard an unexpected splash behind him, the part of the swamp on the opposite side of the dam. A flat tail slapped the water, and fur could be seen, shimmering in the water’s ripples,

Was this it? Has he finally seen his beaver? He tried to open the camera app on his phone, only by looking away to do that, he lost track of where the beaver had splashed, where it had dived, and he was unable to track it back. He lost sight of it, like it had never been there. But it had been. But the bullfrogs were still burping, the warbler was still chirping overhead, and he could also hear some red winged blackbirds screaming at one another.

He had seen his beaver. He began the trek back the way he came. He had succeeded at seeing what he had hoped to see, but he felt angry at himself for the attempt to capture the moment instead of living it like he had the warbler. He had taken pictures of the turtle, that was something.