i am a tree

In winter, the woods are dead silent.

The non-stop insects that made one after another noisy chirps died silently in the first wave of cold snap.

However, the eggs they left behind sleep peacefully in the nests prepared by their parents, waiting for the arrival of spring.

This time may be a long time, and it may become a larva in the second year, or it may take more than ten or twenty years to hatch.

Such as cicadas.

Some cicadas live in the ground for a full 17 years before breaking out.

When the first larva appeared in front of me, I didn't have such a strong sense of crisis.

However, when there are more and more bugs and their appetites are getting bigger and bigger, I start to feel a little uneasy.

The broken branch continued to grow, and by this time, most of my stems had grown obliquely from the small pothole.

On the top, several leaves grew, and some buds, and the tender green color looked very delicious, especially to these bugs.

If I'm not a seedling, losing a few leaves isn't much of a problem unless there's a terrible bug infestation.

But when you have less than ten leaves in total, each leaf is very important, and losing one can make people feel distressed for a long time.

What's more, those bugs will never show mercy. As long as they find a suitable place to eat, they will stay there without hesitation until they eat up all the young leaves.

So my nightmare came when a small black caterpillar with yellow spots fell from the trunk above my head and landed on one of my leaves.

The sound of "crack, crack, crack" gnawed endlessly. As a tree that could not resist, I could only hold tears in my eyes and try to swing with the wind, trying to shake off this caterpillar.

But this caterpillar is stuck to my leaves, and it even wants to eat my young stems that have just grown.

This is really a kind of psychological and physical double torture.

I watched helplessly as this caterpillar finished eating one of my leaves, leaving a bare petiole there, and then turned to my other leaf.

Without the leaves, I cannot carry out photosynthesis, and the water and nutrients absorbed by the roots are useless.

What's more, I have to use the leaves to breathe, and these few young leaves are actually half of my life.

The big tree that has been helping me can't do anything about it.

It shook its body slightly, as if it was very anxious, and I could even feel its main pole vibrate occasionally.

In fact, after a relatively cold winter, many eggs did not survive, so there are not many worms hatched now, I can only say that my luck is not good enough.

Just when I thought, maybe my leaves will be eaten up by this little caterpillar, things finally turned around.

A few days ago, a bird with gray feathers flew to the tree.

It jumped up and down among the branches of the big tree, as if picking something, and finally, it picked the fork formed at the end of the thick branch above my head, and knocked on that place with its sharp beak. knock.

At first I thought it was just passing by, stopping here for a rest, but after a while, it flew back again with some grass in its beak.

This bird is going to build a nest here!

At that time, the rain had just stopped, and I happened to have leisure time to look at this humble bird.

It is not big in size, a little smaller than ordinary magpies. Its fur is gray and smooth, and its pointed beak is bright red.

It flies around, busy, as if eager to build a nest for itself.

The sound of fluttering wings sounded above my head from time to time, which was quite interesting, but this situation only lasted for about an hour, and the gray bird had to leave.

The tree didn't seem to want anyone to step on top of it.

It gently swayed the branches against the wind, and let the dry grass and small dead branches that the gray bird had managed to grab fall down.

After going back and forth like this several times, the gray bird probably finally sensed that someone was making trouble. It angrily pecked at the tree trunk several times, then flapped its wings and flew away.

Now, the gray bird came to the big tree again.

It looked at me sideways, its small black eyes seemed to be observing something, then spread its wings and flew towards me.

The worm finally ushered in its nemesis.

Even if it hid under my leaves, it didn't escape the gray bird's eyes. It dragged it out mercilessly, pecked it with its sharp beak, and then ate it.

I'm happy to watch this savior.

The leaves of the big tree "rustled" in the wind, as if they were also expressing their gratitude.

The gray bird hopped back and forth between the tree trunks, found a few more worms, and ate them full as delicacies.

Then I saw it came to the same old place a few days ago, as if it was very reluctant to part, looked and looked, and looked sideways, very cute.

After watching it for a while, it finally flew away.

I thought it would never come again.

As a result, after a little while, the gray bird flew back with a piece of grass in its mouth.

This time, its nesting operation went smoothly without any disturbance, not even the usual thing that the slight shaking of the branches and leaves caused its newly formed nest to fall apart.

After three days, a small nest was completed.

A very delicate bird's nest, made entirely of dry grass and twigs, the workmanship is amazing.

The gray bird lives comfortably in the big tree, and maybe it will find a companion soon, and then give birth to a brood of chicks.

Dashu kept silent about all of this, turning a blind eye and listening but not hearing, completely without the previous feeling that if anyone made a nest on my head, I would make it difficult for anyone to survive.

Maybe it finally knows how useful a bird that can get rid of pests can be.

Since the gray bird came.

The nest of foxes under the tree seems to have found this delicious food. Several times, I saw the female fox salivating and watching the gray birds flying by at low altitude, as if they could catch them by jumping up.Then without looking back, he left the cave and went out to look for food for the little fox.

It knew very well that no matter how close it looked, the gray bird would never be caught by itself, so it was better to find some more reliable food.

But the three little foxes didn't think so. When the mother fox was out looking for food, they poked their heads out from time to time and looked at the gray bird.

And the gray bird flew to the ground as if teasing them deliberately, and stood not far from them, pecking at the grass blades and insects on the ground.

The three little foxes, on the one hand, were tempted by the food, and on the other hand, they probably remembered the mother fox's warning that they were not allowed to leave the cave.

After watching this scene several times, I came to the conclusion that this gray bird is too bad!