Winter Morning Shadow Plays

            One of my favorite childhood memories or perhaps even adult memories involves using a bright light to cast finger shadows of rabbits, birds, and other creatures onto a blank wall. One morning, I noticed Mother Nature playing her own shadow games on Big Creek below my kitchen window. These engaging and active silhouettes encouraged me watch further and discover what fun the “old girl” could concoct using barren branches, agile squirrels, and flitting birds.

            A number of factors played into this shadow extravaganza.  First of all, water filled the creek that winter and provided a surface to reflect dozens of scampering critters bobbing in the overhead branches at any one time.  Also, the creek hadn’t frozen for long periods due to unseasonably warm temperatures. This sharpened the mirror-like effect on the slow-moving stream. Next, the red line on the thermometer recorded mornings chilly enough to invigorate squirrels and birds, but not so cold that it forced them into still, huddled energy preservation mode.

Another bonus was unnaturally clear air—no fog, no mist, no moisture of any kind obscured mirrored images. Finally, weekends provided time to be home around 8:30 a.m. when the early sun popped over the hill in just the right spot to profile a myriad of cottonwood, ash, and locust shadows onto the winding brook.

            What I saw when I gazed out the window onto Big Creek was a most unusual circus.  Shadows of furry, acrobatic figures chased one another from one darkly silhouetted high branch to another up and down the bank. The inconsequential forms seemed to fly as they leapt across open space. I suspected a previous May’s tornado created greater gaps than the squirrels were used to based on some of the stretches their images made as they reflected vaults from one landing to another. 

Amazingly, those breaches didn’t faze them as they launched wiry forms from limb to limb across spans of about 300 feet. The fearless rodents blasted off across open territory with the fearlessness of the Flying Wallenzas. 

            Every now and then I spied one of the reflected creatures performing a flip or winding itself artfully around a branch like it wanted to enhance its routine. Working in tandem, several choreographed a chase scene to rival the chase in The Thomas Crown Affair.  In addition to the fury critters’ mirrored dives, leaps, twirls, shadows of big and little birds hovered and darted in and out of the darkly profiled scenes. Where to look first became the morning challenge. Who cared about coffee?

            I don’t know how I missed this show on earlier weekend mornings unless that year’s presentation had more to do with previously mentioned factors—unnaturally warm temperatures and lack of moisture in the air that provided clarity we normally didn’t experience winter mornings.  Whatever the reasons, I’ve recorded this shadow play in my memory banks so I can sit back on future mornings and smile at the antics of frisky squirrels turning somersaults in my mind.