Forest Sprites Watching

A few days ago, I decided to take a small divergence from my ordinary woodland walk and cut through the forest. The foliage was really colorful and I figured--what the heck, maybe I'd get some good views. It was a lovely and relatively warm autumn day, and I had nowhere else I needed to be.

So I stepped off the trail, no big deal, right? The undergrowth was a little hard to navigate, and I found that after walking only about 20 paces off the trail I couldn't reliably point back in its direction anymore. This was of no concern, at first, but in retrospect I should have brought a compass. I was a bit too distracted by the majestic sights that I had found before me. It was as though I walked into another world. The trees seemed larger somehow, their glowing canopies filtering colored prism points of light down to the forest floor. Patches of green, crimson, and gold hue found me as I walked. All around me, the cheerful chatter of birds, frogs, and crickets were my company. And somewhere behind their happy talk I heard the whispering of something else--something mysterious.

I wandered for a time, searching the woods through my camera lens for the creatures (bird? insect? Something else?) I kept hearing, and that's when I spotted them on a high branch. A pair of forest sprites, cautiously alert, perhaps a little perturbed, watching me from a low-hanging branch. When it was obvious I had seen them, the two ducked behind the branch, but not before I managed to snap this picture.

Needless to say, I didn't want to risk troubling them further. I have long suspected there's a group of wood sprites living out there in the forest, somewhere; the slow drift of suburban sprawl sparing them thus far. I want to be a good neighbor, and respect their spaces. Perhaps next time I step off the trail, I'll bring a gift in case I happen upon a part of their woodland again. And I'll leave it for them, so they will know I mean no harm.

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Other wood sprite photos (later season):

 

Natural Materials photo gallery: kaikaku.deviantart.com/gallery…