A Naif in the Forest by Darrell Berger

Wing Tips to Hiking Boots: Musings of a New, Full-Time Poconos Resident 

I finally achieved a marginally decent photograph of a chipmunk. He is exploring a covered deck chair. I had so despaired of capturing an image of these tireless scurriers that my previous blog about them resorted to a photograph of Violet the Corgi stiffing where she believed a chipmunk was hiding. 

Our deck has provided several photographs of critters that I otherwise could not get to slow down, sit still or present an unguarded moment. Among them are crows, wasps, spiders, caterpillars, squirrels, gold finches, moths and, had I the proper equipment for night photography, a bear. 

When we sit on our deck, beginning in April and continuing into November with the help of blankets and a portable heater, we enter a liminal space, where humans yield a portion of our imagined sovereignty. The deck is where the wasp bit me after I disturbed his nest under the arm of the chair. It is where mother mouse gave birth under our grill and that unfortunate woodpecker met his demise for enacting a variation of the myth of Narcissus, mistaking his image for a rival. 

We grow flowers, herbs and vegetables on the deck. We attract birds and hummingbirds, futility attempt to chase away squirrels. Years ago there were raccoons. The deck blurs the border between ancient forest dwellers and newcomers from Jersey City. 

The deck also acts as a re-entry into the forest for creatures that find themselves inside our house, mostly by accident. I have escorted many moths, spiders, stinkbugs and assorted unknown fauna back to the forest by helping them onto the deck. I either capture them by hand or entice them onto a piece of paper. Some seem to know immediately that this is helpful. Others seem not to consider it help at all. 

Eventually we close the sliders and return to the environment heated by electricity and a wood stove. The place where wi-fi rules. The forest shouts its silent indifference, appears to tolerate this brief interval when our species seems supreme, if only to itself.