Ravensblood Forest Sun breaks through a crack in the shades

Something startled Ultraviolet awake, though as she jumped to her feet and dove from her nest, she detected no imminent threat. Heck, the forest was still relatively quiet, punctuated by the occasional chirp: the flock's earliest risers. The young jay's entire body shuddered and she puffed up her feathers, flapped her wings and shook her long tail feathers to warm herself in the cold morning air. All the while, she looked around curiously, wondering what on earth had roused her so abruptly.

Then her beady black eyes fixed on something quite strange dangling in one of the oak's branches perhaps eight feet above the limb where she kept a nest. UV remained on her perch for a moment, eyeing it from below, then eventually fluttered to a branch perhaps three feet under the odd shape. When that still wasn't close enough, she airlifted another six or seven feet, putting her slightly above it now.

"Creature?" she said loudly, not sure what else to call it. She was pretty sure it was a creature of some sort, based on the way it moved. It sort of looked like an overgrown bean pod or an old, curled leaf. "What are you?" she asked in a high-pitched, wondering voice, her beak clicking curiously as she hopped to a different branch for yet another perspective.