Were it not for the meadows and wooded ravines that surround the higher reaches of the pine forest, the Monument could not support as many deer as it does. Deer like a mix of woodland and meadow. The dense cover of shrub thickets, canopied by closely spaced elm, chokecherry, hawthorn, and other trees, offers sanctuary and browse. The nearby meadows provide essential diet supplements of grasses and herbs. As I move on, the deer dashes away. A cottontail bounds across the trail and overhead, on a long, twisted branch of a burr oak, a fox squirrel scurries upward to safety. A brown thrasher scolds momentarily but soon resumes its complex song. Its music is as various in shading and structure as the many leaf shapes that can be discovered in its habitat. Before abruptly reversing itself, the trail makes a long swing northward. Leaving the pines, it crosses the maroon sediments that give the Red Beds Trail its name. The exposed formation has been cut into steep cliffs by the river. Deposited some 180 million years ago during the Jurassic Period, when the land surface was low and adjacent to a sea, this mixture of siltstone and sandstone is poorly cemented together. As a result, it weathers easily, forming a striking, ravine-cut outcrop wherever the stratum is exposed. Few plants colonize this handsome formation, making it stand out against the dull, igneous-gray Tower and its dark wreath of ponderosa. As the sun approaches zenith, I am nearing the end of the trail circuit. Coming back closer to the Tower, the trail re-enters the pine forest. I welcome the perceptibly cooler air and dimmer surroundings beneath these big, yellow-barked trees. Here, where lichen and moss cap boulders and fallen logs, is a good spot for lunch. I sit with my back to the trunk of an ancient, fallen giant whose length has collapsed and defines the contours of the ground. Its exposed, rotten heartwood nourishes miniature fungi-gardens. Compared to the sharp shadows and glare of the meadows and thickets I have left behind, the evenly shaded pine forest seems serene. Except for a diminutive red-breasted nuthatch that patrols up and down a nearby tree trunk, gleaning grubs and other insects as it goes, there is no perceptible motion. Even the few shafts of sunlight that touch the forest floor here seem, like me, to be intruders. Sound itself seems unwelcome. No birds sing or squabble or dart their colors to catch the eye. If anything walks or hops about, no leaves rustle to reveal its presence. Years of needle-cast shroud the uneven ground, giving the dissimilar shapes of rock and downed trees a sameness of color and texture. Comparatively few life-forms inhabit the pine forest. Fewer kinds of plants grow beneath the pines than grow in the deciduous woodland. And fewer plant types mean a more limited diet for herbivores such as insects, mice, cottontails, and deer. The scarcity of insects also reduces the number of bird species that will find the habitat attractive.