I crept south on Brush Mountain, sneaking over and under the encroaching laurel hoping to hit a clearing where I could sit and wait on a buck. After several hundred yards, I approached the edge of a south facing ridge overlooking a large hollow resembling a soup bowl. At the edge, I dropped to a knee to avoid sky lining myself and scanned the bottom of the bowl for any discrepancies in the landscape: the twitch of an ear, the tip of an antler, or even a black blob requiring a little more caution. Satisfied, I slumped down next to an old white oak and reached for my lunch. A quick glance to the sun confirmed mid-day’s presence and stimulated my appetite.
After three days of scouring the southern Appalachians for a hooved meal, tired was an understatement. Either the deer were failing to cooperate, or I was hunting poorly, most likely the latter. Nonetheless, enjoying the hunt was becoming difficult. As I sat on the edge of my ridge contemplating an early retreat to camp’s confines and munching on a ham sandwich, I caught a glimpse of movement on the adjacent ridge. Only after dropping my sandwich did I raise my binoculars to my face for a closer look. Through the lenses—on the opposite ridge—I observed a Red Fox hunkering close to the forest floor advancing on a nearby oak tree as quiet as possible.
Still staring through the glass, I saw the occasional twitch of an Eastern Grey Squirrel’s tail hovering at the base of the tree—only feet from the fox’s nose. It took me a second, but I managed to piece together what was occurring.
Stopping just shy of the unknowing squirrel, the fox reared back onto its hind legs and leaped forward pouncing on the squirrel and killing it instantly. Picking its prey up and carrying it between the teeth, the fox pranced over the next ridge and out of sight with pride.
After the fox cleared the area I lowered my binoculars and reflected on the scene. Thinking back as far as my memory allowed, I confirmed that this was my first predator prey interaction; and upon the realization I was overcome with shame. As a self-proclaimed conservationist, hunter, and observer of the natural world, it dawned on me that over a decade’s worth of trips afield lacked the raw relationship between predator and prey; the purest interaction occurring in nature. And after scrutinizing my own faults, I discovered that if I spend a great deal of time in the wild and have only witnessed predator versus prey once, then the occasional wanderer must be unexposed to it.
Blake Garlock is an English major at HCC. In his free time, he enjoys hunting, fishing and writing.