Before the day dies

After the heat comes the fever. The jungle at midday is a deafening hall of sound and silence. Only cicadas and other madding creatures continue to call when all else lies low. But when the hottest hours have passed and the afternoon stretches out into long, livid shadows, the forest rouses itself in a frenzy of activity to make the most of the fading day.

Branches shake with the scurried landings of plaintain squirrels, who show a remarkable absence of fear as they return the stares of landbound onlookers. Their smaller, slenderer cousins are more excitable, issuing a tireless monophony of bird-like barks as they scamper up twigs and leap frog between unconnected saplings. The rustle of dead leaves on dry scales betray the movement of skinks in the litter. At times, the lizards poke their heads out to catch a minute of sunshine and eyeball the towering sources of heavy thuds into their world of fine scents and scaly dreams.

A damselfly with emerald hues and wings of rainbow blue was forced to play second fiddle to a sudden skirmish that was audible just beyond the boardwalk. The battle raged under a brown carpet and proved to be an age-old feud between a great grey beast and a warrior armed with gold. Robbed of her burrow and reduced to a doll of feeble strength, the vanquished queen of the night lay unattended for a while as her conqueror prepared a chamber to entomb a precious egg by a paralysed prize.

Two greater racket-tailed drongos criss-crossed the trail and sallied back and forth to baroque honks and antiphonal squawks. One came down to perch on a broken stem in a clearing, where its steely blue-black plumage sparkled under the hazy rays of a mellow sun. All was not well with the bird, however, for while its left eye was blood red and razor sharp, its right was dull and near-closed. The drongo surveyed its perimeter, and apart from its troubled eye, appeared to be in a prime state. Its sparring partner sat on a higher perch, looking eager to end this pause in the chase.

The green grew darker as the birds vanished into deeper vales. In their place arrived other fliers. Black-bearded dragons land near the base of mottled trunks and rescale the heights with rapid flashes of necked colour. In a tangle of leaves and lianas that hung above a stream, a warbler inspects every slit and cranny for morsels of a tropical winter. And in the still bright layer above the broken canopy, a trio of flamebacks pecked at the heart of a stiff palm, hopping at times from the fibrous blades to probe for grubs in nearby stumps. For once, no voices of ill judgment marred this walk and after a season of gruff scarcity, it was almost possible to forget that on this path, a lantern was lit and lost and no end lies in sight to this search for the gentlest way into your battered, bleeding heart.