A Lesson in Searching: Lilies and Snails

A warm spring breeze tousled Numali’s feathers as she alighted gracefully into the midst of a sunny marshland. Duckweed bobbed along the water’s surface as it rippled in her wake, aquatic vegetation swaying below and tickling her talons. Behind her, two other royal gryphs landed in a far rougher manor, spraying marshwater in all directions as they struggled for footing on the soft muddy bottom. These two were much smaller than Numali, being chicks only recently fledged, with odd tufts of baby down nestled amongst their grown feathers. Unlike Grouse with her already mottled appearance, these tufts stuck out sorely against Ptarmigan’s nearly pure white feathers, and he picked at them self-consciously.

“Now dear,” Numali had chided him gently, “Don’t go picking at your feathers like that. They aren’t ready yet.”

“But mom, they look funny.” Ptarmigan complained. Grouse flicked a wing at him and said playfully,
“You’re just being silly because you’re the only one in the flock that’s all white.”

“Am not!”

“Are too.”

Numali looked back at the two squabbling chicks and clacked her beak disapprovingly.
“Hey, be nice you two. Remember why we’re here?”

“To find a flower?” Grouse offered.

“Yes, but not just any flower. It’s a very rare flower called lily of the marsh. This is a scavenging lesson. Sometime you need to be able to find something very quickly or else it could be too late. Like this lily, which only blooms for a few days.”

Ptarmigan looked around the marsh and frowned.
“How are we supposed to do that? This place is too big.”

“Well,” Numali said gently, gesturing around them, “we’ll just have to look closely, and quickly. We can also use what we know about the flower to narrow down where one could be. The flower needs a lot of sunlight, so we should stay away from the trees, and stick towards the center of the marsh where there aren’t a lot of grasses. Look out for clusters of smaller, light green lily pads, or anything that’s a bright orange-red color.”

The large pale gryph surveyed as the chicks hobbled around the marsh in search for their quarry, often having to redirect them when they became distracted, or started arguing, as younglings were want to do. She herself knew exactly where the flowers were, having seen them here in years past. She wanted to give the chicks the experience to find them for themselves however.

About an hour or so into their search, Grouse suddenly seemed to have found something on a half-submerged log, and proudly brought it over to show her mother.

“Look momma! Look what I found! A pretty pebble! It’s all pointy and swirly.”

Numali inspected her daughter’s find for a moment, then smiled and let out a small chuckle.

“That’s not a pebble dear, that’s a snail. See?”

She pointed at the opening at the base of the shell, where the snail began to slowly reemerge. Grouse set the snail back down on the log and watched as it crawled slowly towards a leaf. The young gryph instantly fell in love with the creature.

“Oh! It’s very cute! Can I keep it mom? Please please? I’ll feed it and give it a bed, and take it everywhere I go.”

Numali thought about it for a moment as Ptarmigan peeked past her to take a look at the snail. He didn’t really see what was so special about it. It look kinda like a worm with a weird face and a rock on it’s back. What was worse, it seemed to be much slimier than a worm. But to Grouse it was the most precious creature in all of creation. She stared pleadingly at her mother with her large dark eyes.

“I suppose you can keep it, yes. You’ll have to be careful not to drop it or let anything crush it. And you’ll need to keep it moist. Here,”

She pulled a lush green clump of moss from the base of the fallen tree and placed it in the small pouch tied around Grouse’ neck, which the chick often used to carry home various rocks and pebbles that she found interesting.

“There. If you keep that wet, and carry the snail in there, it should be safe.”
Grouse gave her mother a big hug, then scooped up the snail again and placed it in her pouch. It peaked out from the top but did not make an attempt to escape it’s new home.

While the other two were busy with this, something else had caught Ptarmigan’s eye. There was a spot of orange not too far away. He flapped over to it, and found in the center of a cluster of lily pads, a large bloom just starting to open and revealing it’s fiery orange petals. Beaming, he plucked it from the water and hurried over back to his mother and sister.

“Look ma! I win! I found one!”

Numali grinned proudly at him.

“Ah, well done sweetheart!”
She pulled her two chicks close with her wings and nuzzled them fondly with her beak.
“I’m very proud of you two. You both did really well today.”

Their lesson complete, the three gryphs headed back towards their mountain home, each chick with their prize in talon, and their mother delighted with their success.