Steam rose from the soup as Tim poured it into the bowl. He held it in this hands and felt the heat spreading out into his frozen hands. Being a Shelby Farms park ranger in the dead of winter as almost as bad as being one in the heat of summer.

As he was unwrapping his sandwich, a terrible hullabaloo kicked up from the other side bay window. A blue heron was flailing about on the porch, one wing stretched out like it was hurt, the other flapping wildly. Tim recognized the tag band on the bird’s foot. It had nearly frozen to death last week after it fell in the lake. He had to bring it inside to thaw out.

Now it had apparently done something else stupid. Tim swore as he slipped on his heavy coat and gloves and made his way to the porch door.

Stepping out into the cold, he shivered immediately. Something was amiss; the heron had suddenly gone quiet. And apparently vanished from where it was on the porch.

The door clicked shut, and Tim looked up, stunned at what he saw.

The majestic bird was inside the visitor’s lodge, scarfing down his lunch.

Memphis Note
Shelby Farms Park park is one of the largest urban green spaces in the nation. It has its own lake, miles of trails, even a herd of buffalo. And last winter, it had a blue heron that nearly froze to death and was saved by a park ranger and judicious use of central heating.

He slips into the drainage culvert and sprints down the darkened tunnel, careful not to be seen. The claws on his feet clicking against the wet concrete, slobber dripping from his chops. Above, the sun is falling out of the sky, and night is rising. It is time to feed.

Several seasons have passed since he found himself, quite by accident, in the heart of the city. For a while, he’d tried to find his way out of the maze of streets, bridges and ditches. But, after a while he gave up and accepted this as his new range.

Here the humans leave delicious, fatty food out of their pets. And when he can’t find that, the fat pets themselves are always easy prey. Easier at least than the squirrels and rabbits he’d chased as a pup.

Occasionally, he’d catch a familiar scent on a tree or patch of grass. Another of his kind, but the markings were always old, muted, decayed. His life here was good, but lonely.

Busting out of the tunnel into a residential neighborhood, he lets loose a howl. Night has fallen completely, and he will be nearly invisible.

The Midtown coyote is on the prowl.

Memphis Note
The elusive Midtown coyote was the subject of much speculation during the later part of the 2000s. Did it really exist? Or was it simply the hallucination of a Central Gardens lawyer spiked off a few too many cosmos? As the years went by, the pet body count kept rising until the coyote was finally caught in a Midtown backyard the day before New Years Eve in 2010.