Middlefork Savanna Exercise 5

"Look!"

She stops, foot poised over a furry lump of a catepillar. It's a stubby little thing, almost as wide as it is long, with black and yellow stripes like a bee. It is moving at a glacial pace, bunching up in the middle and unwinding a millimeter forward like the world's smallest slinky. Her friend reaches forward to poke at it in curiosity, and the poke turns the catepillar over on its side, where it wriggles like a helpless turtle.

A monarch butterfly flutters by. The caterpillar waves its thousand little legs at its cousin, but its cousin does not see, or does not want to risk angering the gigantic mammals crowded around, or is simply uninterested, so it does not dive-bomb in to airlift the caterpillar away.

"Look!"

Binoculars are lifted, catching a turkey vulture in their sights. I have no binoculars, but am assured the turkey vulture is an ugly thing, with a monk's bare head to better allow it to bury itself neck-deep in carrion. The flapping red skin of a turkey's waddle seems to have been stretched over its entire head, but despite the stretching, hangs loose like a burn victim's skin, ready to be sloughed off once rubbed against clothes.

But I have no binoculars, so all I see are two parabolic arcs cresting on the wind, needing only the slightest motion to stay afloat.