Pat Bean's blog

The trailhead at Poison Spring State Park near Camden, Arkansas. Photo by Pat Bean

Brown thrasher. Photo by Ken Thomas

Awhile back I visited Poison Spring State Park, a designated Civil War historical site located off Highway 24 near Camden, Arkansas. The time I spent to digest the historical exhibit that told the story of a battle fought where tree-shaded picnic tables and rusty barbecue grills now reigned left me depressed.

War, regardless of whether the cause is just or unjust, is always butt ugly. I needed an antidote for the worry that this memorial, commemorating the soldiers who lost their lives here in 1864, quickened within me worries about the safety of our military sons and daughters who are fighting overseas today. 

I found the peace where I always do. In the company of Mother Nature. She was on the park’s nature trail, whose existence beyond the picnic area was noted by a colorful carved wooden sign. The path followed a tiny stream bank dotted with lush green ferns. Dragonflies, their double wings glistening in the speckled sunlight that drifted through the tree canopy, darted here and there while chattering cardinals serenaded all. In such a setting one can easily forget all is not right with the world.

House sparrows, mockingbirds and common grackles frequently appeared as I followed the short path  to its end and back.  But it was the sight of a lone brown thrasher that especially thrilled this birder’s heart. The only others I had seen of this species were in my Camden daughter’s backyard, where a pair were raising several chicks in a thick patch of wisteria that grew on the lattice roof of a patio cover.

A rusty brown bird slightly larger than a mockingbird, the brown thrasher mostly skulks its life away in thick woods out of sight of the casual observer. I spotted today’s bird as I rounded a curve in the trail. On spotting me it quickly scooted into the bushes – but not before I had spotted the striped yellow breast and the yellow eyes that shouted its identity.

 War, at least for these few seconds, ceased to exist.