The Plains of Passage - Jean M. Auel [129]
Shortly after they started traveling west again, they came to a fairly large, fast stream. As Jondalar unfastened the pack baskets that hung down quite low on Racer’s flanks, and loaded them into the bowl boat mounted on the travois, he took the time to study the rivers. The small river joined the Great Mother at a sharp angle, from upstream.
“Ayla, do you notice how this tributary comes into the Mother? It just goes straight in and flows downstream without even spreading out. I think this is the cause of that fast current we got caught in yesterday.”
“I think you are right,” she said, seeing what he meant. Then she smiled at the man. “You like to know the reasons for things, don’t you?”
“Well, water doesn’t suddenly start running fast for no reason. I thought there had to be an explanation.”
“You found it,” she said.
Ayla thought Jondalar seemed to be in a particularly good mood as they continued on after crossing the river, and that made her happy. Wolf was staying with them rather than wandering off and that pleased her, too. Even the horses seemed more spirited. The rest had been good for them. She was feeling alert and rested as well and, perhaps because she had just checked her medicines, she was particularly aware of the details of the plant and animal life of the great river mouth and the adjacent grassland they were traveling through. Though it was subtle, she noticed slight changes.
Birds were still the dominant form of wildlife around them, with those of the heron family most prevalent, but the abundance of other fowl was only less by comparison. Large flocks of pelicans and beautiful mute swans flew overhead, and many kinds of raptors, including black kites and white-tailed eagles, honey buzzards, and hawklike hobbies. She saw greater numbers of small birds hopping, flying, singing, and flashing their brilliant colors: nightingales and warblers, blackcaps, whitethroats, red-breasted flycatchers, golden orioles, and many other varieties.
Little bitterns were common in the delta, but the elusive, well-camouflaged marsh birds were heard more often than seen. They sang their characteristic, rather hollow, grunting notes all day, and more intensely with the coming of evening. But when anyone approached, they held their long beaks straight up and blended so well into the reeds among which they nested that they seemed to disappear. She saw many flying over the waters hunting for fish, however. Bitterns were quite distinctive in flight. Their coverts—the small feathers along the front of the wings and just over the base of the tail, which covered the quill ends of the larger flight feathers—were quite pale, and presented a strong contrast to their dark wings and back.
But the marshlands also accommodated a surprising number of animals that required a variety of different environments: roe deer and wild boars in the woods; hares, giant hamsters, and giant deer on the fringes, for example. As they rode, they noticed many creatures they hadn’t seen for a while and pointed them out to each other: saiga antelope racing past plodding aurochs; a small tabby-striped wildcat stalking a bird and watched by a spotted leopard in a tree; a family of foxes with their kits; a couple of fat badgers; and some unusual polecats with white, yellow, and brown marbled coats. They saw otters in the water, and minks, along with their favorite food, muskrats.
And there were insects. The large yellow dragonflies winging past at great speed, and delicate damselflies in glowing blues and greens decorating the drab flower