S'more Please

Who’s to say a barn owl isn’t a s’more?

Imagine silence. A silence that only comes in the wildlands right before the world starts to wake up. The down in your sleeping bag provides tremendous warmth and protection from the outside elements, but it’s not enough to protect you from your own bladder. With a sigh you slide out of your cocoon and reach for the zipper on your tent, but a rustle on the outside stops you.

You take a peek out of the corner of the crinkled canvas and you see a pudgy s’more rummaging around the remnants in the ash of the campfire that was alight last night. Wonder and excitement overcomes you, for just a moment, and you watch for a little longer.

The barn owl, with its heart-shaped face, burnt cedar-coloured wings and stumpy tail, resembles what you can only describe to be a s’more. A traditional American campfire snack. A crisp Graham cracker, a slab of chocolate, a white puff of gooey marshmallow roasted over an open flame, and another cracker slammed on top to keep the sugary goodness contained. The ultimate s’more recipe, or so you’ve been told.

You’ve only ever seen them in movies. You know the ones; the films that have rolling green fields, with mist covering the ground like a cold grey blanket. The sunrise peaking its way above the mountains in the distance. The screeches in the woodlands alerting you that it’s bedtime for the nocturnal creatures. The owls make their final flights across the fields, scavenging for the hurried and scatterbrained fieldmice waking up to start their days. The plump-bodied owls reach out - their talons capture the brown mice; the poor sods didn’t know what hit them.

The s’more jumping around the ashes in front of you makes a screech and jumpstarts your attention back to reality. It was tangible, and right in front of you. He must still be young; his jumps and bounds were bold and boisterous – he was a predator after all. He was scavenging for the leftovers of the meat that fell off the spit the night before.

Soon the need to relieve yourself overcomes you and you slowly pull the zipper of the tent down. Your rustling startles the pudgy s’more-like creature and it quickly flies off into the forest around you. Checking your shoes for an unwelcome visitor, you bang them on the log you sat on last night and smile fondly at the memory of John playing his guitar, and Jane singing along. You’d all had a glass too many last night and the warmth still fills your chest. Camping with mates was the exact thing you needed after a hard year.

The funny thing about the Australian landscape, despite the fact that three quarters of everything you see can kill you, is that it’s so beautiful you willingly walk into danger without even realizing it. You flick off an errant redback and set off. It was early and still slightly damp. These days were the best days to go hiking. You don’t get too hot as you go through the underbrush and scramble over rocks and fallen logs, and you don’t get burned to a crisp when you stop for a break. The moisture in the air can either bring a cool, refreshing breath of life to the world of greenery you’re exploring, or it will bring a certain degree of stickiness that no one particularly enjoys. However, you welcome it once you step into the shade and rest your back up against a broad eucalyptus trunk.

The tree you choose seems sturdy enough and far away from camp so that you wont wake anyone up, and you release. The first one of the day always gives you the feeling of light-headedness. A millisecond before you get lost in the euphoria of peeing in the woods, a screech from above startles you, and coincidentally, you trace a very messy pattern on the trunk. Looking up you see a rounded face staring down at you. You make eye contact. The owl twists its head and you follow suit as though he’s a puppet-master. You’re completely transfixed. After a few moments he ruffles his feathers and deems you to be no risk to him. It’s only then that you realise you’re standing in a mildly compromising position in the middle of the woods, with an owl perching above your head- one that has very sharp claws. Making yourself presentable is your first priority. Your second, is to see if he has any friends. Barn owls are notorious for living in tree nooks and knots. Maybe you might get lucky and find his family. You look down at the bases of the trees in the clearing and you notice that a few of the bigger gum trees have nesting debris and fluffy baby feathers littering a trail down on the forest floor. Slowly your attention turns back to the owl above you only to confirm that yes, he was still watching you – perhaps cautiously to see if you’ll get too close to his family, or perhaps because you can be a bumbling baboon and he needs some night-time entertainment before sleeping the day away.

Who’s to say a barn owl isn’t a s’more after all? The majestic creature watches you for a mere moment or two longer before conceding that it would much rather sleep than watch you try to watch it. The colours flash before your eyes as he darts in between the trees and climbs out of sight. His flash of white marshmallow fluff on his underside, his chocolate brown and Graham cracker colouring across the top of his wings, his toasted tail feathers. What a delicious sight he was to see. What a way to wake up to a new day.