On summer nights, a crackling campfire sparks reflection, conversation: Great Outdoors
“It’s been a long time between campfires,” the man said.
“It has,” I agreed, as we sat there transfixed by the flames.
Hot dogs bubbled on sticks. Smoke curled upward, filtering through Norway spruce branches overhead. A crumbling small branch teepee spit orange sparks that lit up our faces with each small eruption of light.
I flattened the coals for optimum hot dog cookery, then broke a two-minute silence. “This has been a special day,” I said. “I have seen a scarlet tanager and a cardinal flower.”
Scarlet tanagers call deep forests home. Their black wings and tail help contrast with a bold crimson body. Cardinal flowers feature 3-foot-tall spikes of deep red petals. Contrasting with them is the green of plants growing around them.
Seeing either would make a day memorable. Seeing both assures it of lasting long after time has robbed memory of all but the most vivid images.
The tanager had come earlier, in the morning when summer birds dashed through woodland boughs still sponge-wet with dewdrops from night. Thrushes sang as I stepped out on the porch. Robins tut-tutted. Chickadees flitted about.
Just before I saw the flash of crimson, my thoughts were these: Early morning is the best time in summer. Humans still slumber; birds have awakened. Long moments string out, inviting quiet reflection. Time allows for wandering through wet grass in a tattered bathrobe.
Then came that scarlet blur, deeper and more intense than the feathers on a male cardinal — an angry male cardinal even. Its maker flashed across the open yard, then landed on its periphery in a tamarack tree that likes me and is growing rapidly to show its affection.
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I can see you, tanager. Please don’t move. I can see that incredible color. The bird gave me two seconds, maybe a generous three. I watched a nervous twitch or two, the spearing of an unidentified caterpillar, then goodbye. My tanager disappeared, returning to the high mature forest that surrounds my humble abode.
The cardinal flower came later, waiting for us as we wandered upstream on a trout brook we love. Lime green caddis flies whirred over eddies and pools. Our boots splashed through riffles and smooth rounded stones on the bottom.
There grew the cardinal flower, its feet nearly wet on the bank. Alone in its intensity, untouched by sunlight that might bleach its crimson brilliance, the scarlet spike held center stage, without orioles or warblers to draw one’s eyes away and distract.
How long would we wait, I wondered, before a hummingbird arrived to sip from these tubular petals? How long before translucent wings hovered here and a needle-thin bill probed within scarlet blooms? Too long, I concluded.
More: Great Outdoors column: With so many beautiful local birds, how do you pick a favorite?
Darkness approached. We were far from our campfire place.
It was late now, nearly 11. Embers had replaced hot orange sparks. Above us the sky had turned black. We wanted to stay but couldn’t. We wanted the day to last. It wouldn’t.
So we drove home, our headlights dissecting thick fog. My mind turned to scarlet, and promised me it would remember.
E-mail rmarsi@stny.rr.com
This article originally appeared on Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin: Tales of summer are best told over crackling campfires on warm nights
