Cottontail and Red Fox

The trees swayed in the wind, their long branches dancing to the song of the rustling leaves. Through the symphony of the sounds of the forest, four little are paws bounding through the detritus and the rough, patchy grass. A cottontail rabbit pokes its head out from under a wildflower and leaps toward a patch of clovers. Its brown nose twitched and sniffed the three-leaf plant, and once satisfied and sure that it was a clover, bit down its tart leaves. The hot afternoon sun caressed the tan fur of the rabbit and slightly stung the thin skin on its ears as the sun went down. Night came ever so fast and the forest took on a new persona. The overhanging limbs across the forest ground seemed to never end, and the padding of paws and the snap of a branch near the patch of clovers frightened the rabbit. The cottontail dashed to safety, a small hole under a log covered in earthy fungus, dewy leaves covering the entrance to the pit. Heart slamming against the rabbit’s fragile ribcage it kept silent, shifting its ears to attempt to hear the creature trying to hunt it. A slender, tawny orange and white fox crept along the faint path the rabbit had made with its footpads. It gracefully crept upon the rotting leaves and the rich earth but it eventually lost its tracks. It walked off in defeat as the cottontail scurried to its den, moon shining through a lattice of leaves.

Cottontail

Indira Schargel

Red Fox

Indira Schargel

Ibasked in the early autumn sun, the weather still being hot from the remnants of summer. Rolling in the detritus and the patchy grass of the part of the forest I roam, I felt a hunger start to slowly creep up on me. I picked myself up from my sunbathing and went in search of a source of food. I skipped through the undergrowth, jumping for parts that I couldn’t crawl through or under. I lifted my snout to the sun and took in its lovely rays when there were patches in the ferns I was traveling through. As night just began to fall, I searched for something, anything. A bird, frog, mouse—ah! A rabbit. Ahead of me, surrounded like a high priestess by clovers, a perfect cottontail lay. I quieted my approach, crouching low… sneaking up on it… getting ready to leap… but to no avail. A small broken twig lay under my paw, mute after crying the shattering snap of being stepped on. The rabbit dashed. I looked up just in time from the twig to see the general direction of where it went. I cursed myself and my rotten luck but did not preoccupy myself with the mistake. I needed to find this rabbit. I plodded over to the place where it was laying, the dainty impression of its body still noticeable in the clovers. I searched around that area, looking for its little pawprints in the earth. My feet sliding on the little mushrooms and stamping their worthless fungal life into mush in anger. I gave up. I walked off, dewy leaves sliding against my fur and hopping over a rotting log.