Tag Archives: camouflaged

Midnight In The Marsh

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2016-03-09MidnightReedsSpoonbill3010

Deep in the backwaters of the marsh where the wild things live, strange events take place. A late feeding Roseate Spoonbill is working the edge of the reeds, sweeping its large bill back and forth along the estuaries bottom hoping for a quick meal as the moon breaks through the clouds illuminating it. This is a particularly dangerous place to be after dark. The whole marsh can be dangerous but this stretch happens to be on a channel where the slow flowing water enters from the Gulf and as such is a natural highway for the large scaly predators that glide quietly along looking its length looking for that unsuspecting meal.

There is little sound on a calm windless night here in the marsh other than the occasional call of a bird settling in for the night, or the soft susurrations of the long slender reeds rubbing together, their quietest murmuring barely breaking the silence as the sluggish water moves them to and fro.

There is one sound however that all of the wading birds learn to listen for and that is the sound of a powerful tail rippling back and forth just beneath the surface of the water propelling its owner forward in an otherwise silent glide. There is little to see in the dark water as the perfectly camouflaged predator patrols the channel. The eddies formed by the tails movement drift into the reed’s edge causing a slight rustling sound slightly louder than normal. If it weren’t for the occasional low popping sound from the bubbles formed by the rapidly swirling eddies, little whirlpools caused by the powerful tail whipping back and forth, this midnight killing machine would be totally silent.

You don’t grow up into an adult here unless you’ve mastered the skills necessary to stay alive. The spoonbill, nervous at being alone, is hyper-vigilant and at the first slight echo of anything out of the ordinary takes flight for a safer roost, its feeding done for the night. The gator pauses for a brief moment, listening to the sound of the spoonbills departure, he’s not worried about missing this one opportunity, he knows that there are other places where the birds feels safe and roost too close to the water’s edge. He’ll feed tonight. It just won’t be on Roseate Spoonbill.

We’re In For It Now

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These are actual living trees. Notice anything different about them? That’s right they’re camouflaged. “What’s the big deal?” you might ask. Well, I’ll tell you the big deal. They’re camouflaged! You can’t see them because they blend in. You had trouble identifying them when you first looked at the picture didn’t you? That’s what camouflage does. You can walk right up to them and not see them until it’s too late and you’re laying there on the ground with busted glasses, bark in your teeth and your nose all out of joint.

Sometime back we wrote an expose about Camouflage, or Camo as it lies to be called, and fortunately posted it right here on BigShotsNow.com under the title “Camo – It’s Not Just For Wearing To Wal-Mart Anymore”, you can find it here:  http://www.bigshotsnow.com/camo-its-not-just-for-wearing-to-wal-mart-anymore/

We thought things were getting bad then but now it looks like we may have underestimated the danger. These trees pictured above, are living and proliferating right in the middle of downtown Denver. I’d tell you where, but they’ve blended in so well we cannot relocate them at the moment. We’ve been watching for unconscious people lying about on the sidewalk and have been checking various hospitals for increases in admissions with facial trauma, and other than the usual uptick after a Bronco/Raiders game it has been quiet. We’ve been querying local dentists to see if they’ve been plagued with bark removal cases from front teeth yet. They’ve responded there have been a few extra cases but we can’t triangulate the center point yet given the spotty response. We need to relocate these trees, so we can at least mark them with police warning tape.

The Institute believes this is becoming an insidious problem and cannot just be laughed off as a bunch of near-sighted, pot smoking Denver-ites walking into trees because they’re too baked to see where they’re going and that’s what stoners do. No this is too serious for that. What if a wind storm blew down some of these camouflaged trees over a roadway, like maybe I-25, you’d still be hearing cars crashing into each other up in Cheyenne. Would your insurance company pay off because you deliberately drove into trees lying across the road because you just “didn’t see them”? We think not. Well there you go, that’s just one problem. What if this malady spreads to other trees. Like fruit trees for instance, how would you even know when the fruit was ripe to pick? Worse yet how would you be able to buy it if you couldn’t find it in the produce section of your favorite Piggly Wiggly because it was camouflaged? The problem just gets worse the more you think about it.

Yes it is a problem. And problems need solutions, and of course that is what we do here at The Institute, we fix problems, even if the public doesn’t recognize that there is one  yet. We are going to be much more reactive in locating these trees and once we’re sure of where they are, we are then sending out teams of taggers, mostly gleaned from halfway houses and juvenile detention halls, with specially formulated Tree Tagger Paint that sticks to trees and glows in the dark, to paint warning messages on these obstacles to public health. Messages like “Whoa, Dudes! Watch it, Camouflaged trees here!” this would be for the stoners or burners, as one of our experts in Urban Street Slang likes to call them. Or possibly “Say, careful there, Camouflaged trees here, you wouldn’t want to have to replace those pearly whites right up there in the front of your face, Would you?” This would be from our friends in the Dental community. We know it’s a little long for a slogan but then you have some fairly educated people in Denver who like to read and would appreciate the erudite warning.

This is a battle we’re just beginning to fight and we know there is going to be an uphill struggle to get everyone on board with this. Public education is paramount if fighting this new threat. We need hotlines for people who have received unexpected whacks to their face to call in and give us the details so we can determine if one of these camouflaged trees was responsible or if you simply shouldn’t have replied to that drunk in the bar. We need your help in this ongoing effort to combat camouflage. So help us, so we can help you. Remember, We’re from The Institute, and we’re here to help.