The Call of the Deer

April and May are flower season in Thirty-Nine Ridges. The hillsides, stream banks, mountain ridge-lines, and secluded valleys were all covered with blooming flowers, more brilliant than the rosy clouds in the sky.

 

Shining blue ladybells, pale yellow lotuses, dazzling red trumpet creepers, and elegant lilies perfumed the breeze with their fragrance, and seemed to dye water the colors of their blossoms.

 

Clumps of inula flowers, their blooms pink and snow-white, looked like clouds drifting above the verdant hillsides. Their early flowers already bore tiny, flat, thorny fruits, on the tips of which the pistils still remained, waving in the wind like a white peacock’s plumes. No one would have guessed that amidst these densely intertwined branches and tendrils was a special observation post!

 

Now hiding among the clumps of inula plants were Lan Quan, a member of the Youth Nature Conservation Team, and Little Ding, who had reported finding evidence of a sika deer . Each of them was monitoring a separate direction. Through the observation ports they had made the previous night among the white flowers and green leaves, each kept watch over his own area, searching and waiting for the figures of sika to appear. But all that was visible were the dim mountains and a backdrop of twinkling morning stars.

 

Cheep-chirp-cheep!

 

The call of a Black Drongo bird broke the silence.

 

“The dawn birds have started singing,” whispered Lan Quan to Little Ding, “so the hillside is going to be light soon. Mr. Chen said that there’s a connection between morning bird calls and the brightness of the sky.”

 

“Could we use that to tell time?”

 

“Yes, of course! Animals’ patterns of sleep and activity—their whole lives—are all governed by time.”

 

“So if you hear a certain bird calling, you can tell what time it is?”

 

“Why not? That’s called a biological clock.”

 

“So how do roosters know what time to crow when it’s still dark out?”

 

“Well, that’s what research on biological clocks is trying to find out.”

 

Little Ding started thinking. Why did Red-crowned Cranes only come here in August, and then fly north in February and March? Why did babblers flock together to fly south at the slightest snow? Why did cuckoos come to cheer on the harvesters and watch over the sowing of the next year’s crop when the wheat turned golden? Why did winter jasmine, peaches, apricots, pears, pomegranates, cloves, and jasmine each bloom in different months, one following another? Lan Quan thought all these things were absolutely fascinating. After hearing about biological clocks from his teachers, he had become even more captivated. One day, I’ve got to figure out how all of this works, he told himself...

 

The call of the Black Drongo rang out again.

 

“Ha-ha!” laughed Little Ding. “Birds are like the sun’s alarm clock! They tell us what time it is with their songs...”

 

Before he finished, some blackbirds, which can change their voices to sing a variety of different songs, began showing off their talents. The bird world awoke: In the treetops, in the grass, and under the honeysuckle plants, Great Tits, small cuckoos, thrushes, Rusty Laughingthrushes, babblers, Chestnut-winged Cuckoos, and Brownish-flanked Bush-warblers all started to sing. Sometimes they sang solo, sometimes in turns, and sometimes in a chorus, filling the green, grassy hillside with their joy and exuberance.

 

As the air throbbed with crisp, ringing bird calls, the morning stars retreated. The sky turned blue, the hillsides turned green, the ridges and peaks shone majestically, and the smoky fog lifted.

 

“Chubby really isn’t coming?” Little Ding looked at the empty spot in the grass next to him.

 

“He’ll come,” Lan Quan said quietly. “ Don’t pay attention to what he says when he’s raving and making a fool of himself like he was last night. When he acts intimidating like that, it’s because he’s feeling anxious. Our Nature Conservation Team is trying to protect sika deer, these natural treasures, but so far, none of us has been lucky enough to see one. You think any of us aren’t feeling a little on edge?”