The Twelve Gifts of Tracking

Porcupine Mandibles

 The rolling hills and drumlins of the Bruce Trail inspired this seasonal story of the day:

On the 6^th Day of December, my tracking friends shared with me…

Twelve apples cached by squirrels (munched on by rodents, rabbit, deer and grouse)

Eleven animal trails (some serious) made by deer, rabbit, porcupine and raccoons.

Ten deer beds, scrapes and antler rubs.

Nine piles of deer, coyote, raccoon, porcupine and squirrel scat.

Red Squirrel Cache

Eight animal homes lived in by fox, groundhog, red squirrel, porcupine and sparrows.

Seven raven calls above a coyote’s resting place by the creek.

Six pine grosbeaks.

Five mandibles (from porcupine, coyote and meadow vole)

Four gulleys (landforms* and one named Sue)

Three rodent-chewed deer bones

Two grouse exploding into flight (and two ginger chocolate squares)

…and a porcupine in a hemlock tree.

*a water-worn ravine

By Tamara Anderson - 2nd year Tracking Apprentice

Jedi Tracker Training and Luke Sandwalker

Sunday November 1^st, 2015

As the tracking apprentices learned about pressure releases this past weekend, we could almost hear the wise words of Yoda saying, “Patience you must have my young padawans”.  After constructing a 10 foot long by 5 foot wide tracking box on Saturday, we were ready to embark on using the giant sandbox to look at tracks.  Alexis shared his passion and knowledge of pressure releases eloquently and enthusiastically.  We also had “The Science and Art of Tracking” by Tom Brown Jr. in hand.  We learned how turns, changes in direction and sudden stops cause pressure against the wall of a track.  The pressure is released as cliffs, ridges, peaks, caves, plates, fissures and explosions in the substrate.  The second pressure release study looked at what happens to the substrate as a result of a change in forward motion.  The apprentices walked, ran, and jigged across the tracking box to get a better understanding of how speed influences the appearance of a track.  We created waves, disks, dishes and explode-offs in the sand.  We were helped out by both a cat and a dog, who were somewhat obliging in letting us analyze their tracks in the tracking box.  Alexis shared a quote by Stalking Wolf on page 34 of The Science and Art of Tracking, “We first must learn the simple language of the tracks, which teaches us to hear the voice of the animal, and soon, through the voice of the animal, we begin to hear the voice of the Earth.” The day also included a little sand castle construction and much merriment.

Written by Tamara Anderson - 2nd Year Earth Tracks Tracking Apprentice

A Boyne River Valley Scat Rap

Sunday September 13, 2015
Written by Tamara Anderson

(With help from the Scat Rap, by A. Bennett, M. Keebler, R. Pemble, D. Elliott, and B. Jonas)

It starts with an “s” and it ends with a “t”. It comes out of you and it comes out of me. I know what you’re thinking, don’t call it that. Let’s be scientific and call it scat.

The tracking group met at an old dam and Grist Mill known as Ponton Mills in the Boyne river valley. We set a course northward to a big hill where a fisher’s tracks had been found the previous winter.  Ten degree weather and a forecast of rain added a chill to the morning.  Autumn had arrived in south-western Ontario.

Pausing to observe cedar roots wrapped around limestone, and crayfish under rocks, we clambered along the shore of the Boyne River.  The fragrant smell of mint filled our nostrils and we brushed by groves of horsetails. Old beaver chews and deer trails caught our attention. 

Left by the dozen in piles on the ground; Lots of little pellets are what you’ve found. They look like little chocolates so it is clear. This is the scat of a white tailed deer.

A deer popped up from her day bed while we admired fawn pellets.  She bounded across the river to our East.  We continued up the hill, discovering deer bones and following the course of a spring to its source.  Refreshing, cold water flowed out from the hillside. 

Animal-made switchback trails helped us climb up the steep valley slope.  At the top, there was a scat underneath a Black Cherry tree.    

Up on the hill, under a Black Cherry; Scat full of apple and purple berries. Late last night he was out with the moon; foraging in the forest, it was Mr. Raccoon.

The spruce plantation at the top of the hill revealed porcupine chews and more deer bones.  A logging trail led us to a rolling topography of maple trees.  A wood thrush sat on the forest floor watching us.  Alexis found an interesting limestone rock that had been hollowed out.  Had it been hollowed out by water or maybe by a human?

Tracks showed where a raccoon and a coyote had explored a muddy flat near the edge of the forest.  The forest opened into a clearing.  Deer beds were scattered around the open field.  Lianna found deer hair in one of the beds.  We hiked up to a lookout.  Northern Flickers had probed for ants on the steep hill.  We found an opened apple covered in ants in the middle of the trail.  Iwonder if the flicker placed the apple to attract a buffet of ants?

The hilltop overlooked the Boyne Valley.  Sharp-shinned hawks, Turkey Vultures, a Swan, Blue Jays and Northern Flickers performed aerial feats as we discussed the landscape, noting colourful pockets of different tree species.  On the way back to the car, we encountered a muskrat making trails in the marsh and dinner out of cattails.  

In closing,
Down the trail something’s lying on the ground; Nature’s Tootsie Roll all long and brown. Don’t wrinkle your nose, don’t lose your lunch. Break it apart, you might learn a bunch:)

Written by Tamara Anderson - 2nd Year Earth Tracks Tracking Apprentice

The Spirit of Plants

The Spirit of Plants

Our August plants apprenticeship weekend took us deeper into some questions we had dipped into in previous months, questions on engaging with the spiritual aspects of the plant world, and exploring how we could tune into understanding the gifts that plants bring to us with our hearts and intuitions, as well as our minds and hands.

The energy of the weekend was quiet and receptive, quite different from our previous weekends of adventurous exploring, meeting plants in new locations, researching species, and working with ethically-harvested wild plants and farmed plants in medicinal and culinary ways. This time we stayed on site at the home of Earth Tracks and Rebel Roots Herb Farm, and spent much of our two days under a large black walnut tree that sheltered us against the bright August sun.

The weekend was primarily composed of a series of deepening meditations that worked on our abilities to open up to intuition and deeply listen to the energies of the living beings all around us. We were encouraged to keep our minds and hearts open to visualize, imagine, dream, find metaphors, listen to our inner voices, and engage in the unseen world in whatever way worked for each of us. We made space to speak of our personal experiences of the sacred, and a container of trust and respect was created that honoured each participant’s individual beliefs and experiences.

 

To set the tone and bring us into a quieter frame of awareness and connection, we wove in elements of ceremony and ritual into the weekend.  Alexis incorporated some good context on the lineage of the rituals we were using, and we had opportunities for questions and dialogue on how to incorporate ceremony into our own lives in ways that felt authentic to each of us.

Along with group meditations, we had time to sit individually with plants and trees on the landscape to deepen our relationships with them, as well as to practice meditation and visualization techniques on our own. We spoke of dreams and how to find meaning in them – in a personal, intuitive, non-formulaic way - to help guide us in waking life, and we learned a useful word-association exercise for dream recall and interpretation. We also did a number of playful paired and group exercises on reading energy from each other, from plants, and from objects that we were deeply connected to.

The atmosphere of the weekend was open, exploratory, curious and connecting.

It was also nourishing and relaxed. And above all, it introduced us to a set of approaches, tools and possibilities for engaging with the natural world through spirit, and engaging with spirit through the natural world.

Written By: Malgosia Halliop - 2nd Year Plants Apprentice

The Wisdom of the Marks

The site of a porcupine, raccoon and flying squirrel holes in this big old Basswood tree

Saturday and Sunday, July 26^th, 2015

Written by Tamara Anderson - 2nd year Tracking Apprentice

In his book Nature Observation and Tracking, Tom Brown Jr. writes; “The earth tries to be flat.” He was referring to how weather and gravity “conspire to erase tracks”.  This past July, the tracking apprentices observed the subtle traces of summer tracks at Allan Park near Durham. We also created tracks and signs at Alexis’ house and watched how they changed over two days.  Lately, I have been tracking the landscape just as much as I have been following the footprints of animals.  Approximately 10,000 years ago, a receding glacier scraped the surface of the land that is now Allan Park and deposited material from the Canadian Shield.  Some of the material was ground into sand, silt and clay. A huge chunk of ice from the glacier dropped onto the landscape and a kettle lake was formed.  Allan Park is part of the Horseshoe Moraine. It includes a trail system that reaches an elevation of 30 metres in some places. 

Fawn Tracks

On Saturday, we wandered the rolling, forested pine, spruce and cedar hills beside the glacier-made trout pond.  The sandy edge of the pond revealed the opened shells of snapping turtle eggs.  This prompted a few questions:  How does temperature affect turtle egg incubation? Do predators leave different signs when they predate turtle nests?  I learned that the “J” shape of the Jack pine cone is a helpful way to remember the cone-makers identity.  Sue asked about whether any local species of rats are native to North America and which snakes have live birth?

Watching Tracks Age

On Sunday morning we were enchanted by the purling rattle of a Sandhill crane in a field near Alexis and Bobbi’s place.  Sandhill Cranes beckon my attention in an ancient way. After reading about Sandhill cranes, I discovered that they are the oldest known surviving North American bird species.  That morning, we returned to Allan Park and found a trail on a steep hill that led to different interpretations.  It is amazing how the track of a sliding deer can look similar to the five toes of a barefoot, feral child;)  After following a doe and her fawn’s tracks along a sun-baked, sandy trail, we ventured into a cool, deciduous forest of Hickory, Basswood and Maple.  The tracking apprentices used tracking sticks to track each other in leafy debris.  Luke and Miriam discovered a vole tunnel and burrow network at the forest edge.  We lightheartedly discussed how best to classify this trail.  If vole trails under the snow are called “subnivean” then would this trail under the leaf-litter be called sub-humusean?  We also wondered whether the trail was from a red-backed or a meadow vole.  Do meadow voles occasionally lives in forests?  What is the range of the red-backed vole? Alexis located a flying squirrel latrine in a basswood tree. Flying squirrel scat accumulates in areas where the squirrels nest and cache food. The scat often flows out of tree cavities, low to the ground. 

I will end this post with a continuation of Tom Brown’s tracker wisdom; “There is hardly a square foot of ground that is absolutely flat. Every depression, every bump, every fissure, and every scratch on the landscape was made by something. Whether it was made by a rabbit, mouse, bulldozer, fish, frog, or volcano, it is the tracker’s job to notice and interpret it.” (Tom Brown Jr., Nature Observation and Tracking)

Tracking on the Sauble River

Sunday June 14^th, 2015 - Story of the Day

 Written by Tamara Anderson

 

Bob Marley wrote, “Some people feel the rain and others just get wet.”  The rain reminds us of mindfulness - to live in the moment and welcome whatever it brings.  We were immersed in rain and mindfulness for most of Sunday’s outing to the Sauble River.  The Sauble River flows through Bruce and Grey County into Lake Huron.  The river was named “Rivière aux Saubles” or Sandy River by the French explorers in 1759.  I wonder if the local Saugeen First Nation has a different name for this river?

The maple forest revealed a few gems, like a brave garter snake.  The snake patiently let us hold him/her.  Beaver, coyote, raccoon and muskrat tracks were also spotted along the silty shoreline of the river.  Nearby, Alexis found an otter latrine site with a freshly killed garter snake.  Had the garter snake fallen out of the grasping talons of a bird of prey?  The otter scat contained scales from fish and the rusty-coloured remains of crayfish.  A Red-Eyed Vireo serenaded us once again while we ate lunch beside the river.  After lunch, we found Giant Hogweed, an invasive plant whose sap can cause intense blistering and even blindness.  Strangely enough, we noted deer browse on the tips of the Hogweed. Deer never cease to amaze me with their ability to eat noxious plants.  My impression of them as adrenaline-seeking risk takers continues to evolve. 

We were soon on a quest for Kingfisher holes after seeing a steep, sandy river bank on the south shoreline.  Success!  A square-looking hole was found near the top of the bluff.      The Belted Kingfisher excavates a nesting burrow that is two to three metres long in a vertical sand bank.  The blue and white lightning bird digs the tunnel with its beak and feet.  We wandered south towards a colourful, alvar-looking landscape.  Sandy trails revealed coyote scat and mystery tracks.   We debated the track-maker’s identity and finally resolved to call the animal a fox-walking raccoon.  A short drive to Sauble beach on Lake Huron completed the day.  In our closing circle, each person shared their focal species for the next 8 months.  Aster chose the beaver.  Sue is learning more about deer.  Miriam is also studying deer.  Luke is thinking about lagomorphs.  Alexis is going to learn more about the European hare.  I am choosing to focus on the black coyotes that live around my place.  Strangely, no one chose the fox-walking raccoon?

Spring Time Tracking at Mono Cliffs

Saturday, May 23, 2015 - Day 1

Mono Cliffs Provincial Park

Our group gathered into a circle under the shade of an old Sugar Maple at the edge of an open sunny field. We shared our goals, intentions and gratitude as we watched the wind blowing through the landscape, passing over the tall grasses and through the aspen/poplar leaves in a playful fashion. We watched a couple of Northern Harriers fly over the field, triggering a discussion on sexual dimorphism and hawk ID features, followed later by a Wild Turkey hen cautiously wandering out from her nest to feed.

After our sharing, we got up to prepare to head out into the field for our first day of tracking but right beside where we had been sitting, we noticed some really neat tent caterpillar webs on some young cherry trees! What type of cherry where they; black, choke or pin? We spoke a bit on how to tell cherry species from the shape, size and spacing of their flower clusters.

As we headed into the field, we looked back to our shady spot and saw just how much our own impressions on the land (where we had sat) resembled deer beds.

We didn't get more than 15 or 20 meters into the field before we stopped to look at some of our first animal sign. Alexis crouched down and pushed some grass aside, revealing a tiny trail carved into the ground underneath the tall grasses. He showed us a tiny piece of grass stalk cut on a 45 degree angle, indicating vole feeding sign. We spent the next while unveiling the intricate network of vole trails through the field. We wondered how large the territory range was for these tiny creatures, which according to Mark Elbroch, is 1/10 to 1 acre!

We saw plenty of large holes scattered over the field around some of the vole holes going down into the ground. Had someone like a fox or coyote been digging here to feed on the voles?

We stopped around a rock cropping looking for signs of weasel activity and talked about defining features of various local members of the weasel family.

Then we pushed towards the edge of the field along the tree line where we found some huge scars on the younger aspens from past deer antler rubbing. We stepped into the wooded area and began to travel along a deer trail that ran South, just a few feet into the forest. We took a look at some of the claw and teeth marks on various trees. Showing signs of porcupine and raccoons who had climbed these trees in the past.

We soon came to a spot where we noticed someone had been eating the trout lily greens. Who was the culprit, turkey, deer, rabbit? We took note that the greens were cut flat and sometimes slightly frayed. Then we found another clue, a hair that kinks when it is bent, indicating the eater's hair had a hollow core. A clear track then confirmed our suspicions.  White-Tail Deer.

We found some holes carved out of dead wood, triggering a lesson on how to differentiate between local woodpecker species from the signs. We were really able to bring home this lesson as theory was confirmed as we found examples in the field of signs from nearly each type of woodpecker throughout the course of the day!

In the afternoon, we made our way along some beautiful cliff ridges carved out around 11 000 years ago by some great glacier melts, providing breathtaking views of the valley below. We sat watching and listening to the birds together,  sighting some rose-breasted grosbeaks, red-eyed vireos, chickadees, turkey vultures, ravens and a few different warblers. We split up for some grounding sit-spot time long the cliffs before embarking on the descent back down towards our meeting point.

Throughout the remainder of the day, we wandered through the woods, talking about trees and plant ID, deer rutting behaviour, predators of ant hills, grouse vs wild turkey dust baths, what the deer have been eating and how to assess the age of forests based on the plants and trees growing there. It was truly a day full of many lessons, tying academic information in beautifully with experiential learning in the field.

Written by:  Lianna Vargas - 2nd year Tracking Apprentice

Majestic Trees and the first Spring Ephemerals

On Sunday, Along the Niagara Escarpment,  we continued to learn about trees, and found several spring ephemerals poking through the leaves on the forest floor. There were tiny Spring Beauties with whitish pink flowers and Trout Lilies whose bell-shaped yellow flowers were yet to bloom. Tiny purple Violet flowers were growing in a sunny spot near Blue Cohosh's with their stems still purple as they emerge from the earth. We paused to harvest some Trout Lily corms, a sweet treat in the spring and in the summer and fall they have a taste more like potatoes. These early spring wildflowers grow, flower and go to seed in a forest before the leaf canopy grows thick enough to block out the sun.

We focused on identifying hardwood trees today, especially opposite branching ashes and maples.  We also found Ironwood, Trembling Aspens, White Birch, Black Birch, some Willows, Balsam Fir, and Common Elderberry shrub. We talked about forest succession when we came across Indian Pipe, a plant that gets it’s energy not from the sun, but from the fungus under the ground growing on the roots of trees. Also known as Monotropa uniflora, this plant has the coolest latin name of the many we learned today.

The Trail took us down the cliffs along a set of stairs. We paused for lunch near a pond and several folks sang some beautiful songs as we ate.  We tasted a thin slice of Wild Ginger root just before lunch, the unique maroon flowers should be coming out soon.  In the afternoon, we made tinctures.

Bright yellow Coltsfoot, has several features that distinguish it from dandelion, including purplish alternating scales on the stem, and heart-shaped leaves that don’t come out until after the flower does. We sat by the water, harvested some Coltsfoot and made a tincture in a mason jar.  Coltstfoot has demulcent properties, which means it can soothe a throat sore from a cough or a cold.  It’s expectorant properties mean that it can thin out mucous so that it is more easily expelled by coughing. We stopped by the creek to harvest some bark from a White Birch that had been cut down recently- it would make great baskets and other natural crafts.      

 

The Willows sat by the water; a small pond with some geese asserting themselves for a prime nesting ground.  Nine Painted Turtles basked on a log, they seemed to be unfazed by the geese’s loud honking battles.  A bat and several birds, sparrows and Red-Winged Blackbirds also inhabit this wetland.  As the clouds rolled in, the spring peepers started their mating song. We tinctured some Willow here, to be used to help with pain and inflammation.

Heading home, we stopped along another pond making up the headwaters of the Sheldon Creek.  We filled up our water bottles at a nearby spring. The path turned south and got steeper.  As we climbed through the cliffs we stopped to take a group photo!

 

The trail took us to a lookout at the top of the Escarpment. Looking out over the forest, we watched the turkey vultures soaring in the cliff’s updrafts and listened to some stories of Alexis’ adventures in this place many years ago. A closing circle was held at the top of the cliff.  We shared some gratitude and anticipation for the months to come before heading to the cars.

Written By:  Alex Thomson - 2nd Year Plants Apprentice

Trees, Owl Eyes and Cold Water

Saturday April 18 – Trees, Owl Eyes and Cold Water

 As we sat in our first circle of the 2015 Wild Plants Apprenticeship – the sun was out and so were the birds. In our spot along the Bruce Trail, many hikers passed us quickly as we sat and learned each others names in the cool grass dotted with raspberry canes.

Soon, we stepped a few feet further along the path to discover a tall, flaky barked tree. I scraped a young branch with my fingernail to release the smell of almonds that the black cherry has hidden under its bark. We spent many moments by this tree, harvesting some of its inner bark to make medicine with. Using knives and fingers, we were each able to take some bark with us, while stashing some branches to return to later.

Hiking past the first meadow, we found ourselves in a stand of pines, planted perhaps to break the wind across these fields. “All pines are evergreens, but not all evergreens are pines” was a lesson to remember. With five pine species in this region, we spent some time teasing out which one we were looking, and with five needles in each bundle, this first tree was in fact the official tree of OntarioJ

In a survival situation, pines are a reliable source of safe foods – but we were reminded “Don’t ever ingest anything that you don’t have 100% ID on”. Seems like some words to live by!

Further down the trail, we came upon a velvety-leaved rosette coming through the grasses. This biennial plant is a great medicine to support the lungs and airways, and when the flowers are steeped in oil, can also be a remedy for the common earache.

As we passed another stand of pines and some feeding sign from a porcupine friend, we came out to a south facing hill where some tiny lobed leaves were making an appearance. This new growth of the Ox-eye Daisy is uniquely flavoured and quite lovely in a salad.

Looking at pine cones and pulling needles, we spent much of our day absorbing the details of the conifers that allows us to differentiate them and begin to build relationships with these tall towers of food and medicine that once dominated this landscape.

Through a low cedar wetland, we found yellow birch, and even a wild spring where water can be drunk from the ground! The cool liquid was a great addition to our warm sunny day, and I loved the opportunity to have water that was known to be safe coming directly from the earth to me.

 

After crossing a precarious creek or two, many of us had removed our shoes and were varying levels of muddy. Walking into a hardwood stand, there were some stunning baby blue cohosh plants, and the young leaves of a Garlic Mustard.  With the Garlic Mustard sparking some interesting conversations around native and invasive plants, and sustainable harvesting, there was some excitement building for using and eating some of our more bountiful plants!

After sitting in silence in the late afternoon, we slowly came back together as a group again by the cold creek. With our bare feet on the earth, we were encouraged to spend a little time learning how to feel through our footsteps, and soften our gaze to use all of our peripheral vision. In “owl eyes” we walked slowly around the grasses and saplings, and I was so excited to see some moths and small flies pop into vision. I can’t wait for what I see next!

Written By:  Lee Earl - 2nd Year Plants Apprentice

Landscape Tracking - Learning from the Land

This weekend’s theme was landscape tracking! We met at the Hockley Valley Nature Reserve near Orangeville. Few of us had been to the area, so we were keen to go exploring.

After a quick gratitude circle, we followed the trail west for a few minutes, then out into a grassy lowland next to a treed slope. All the grass had been pushed down and there were trails cutting through. Was it the work of deer? Was it people? Or had someone’s enthusiastic dog rolled all over? Jeff noted that the goldenrod was still standing. Could that be a clue about the perpetrator? We bent down and looked at the green carpet more carefully. It was green on top, but brown underneath. This grass had been pushed down for quite a while.

Alexis decided that we should follow the deer trail up the slope and into the trees just to see where it would take us. By observing the trail, we could see how they shaped the landscape. The deer had worn a rut into the earth, and when we stepped off-trail, we sank into the soft pine needle carpet. Punky logs in the path of the deer had been pulverized by their hooves.

Were the deer going uphill or downhill? Was the trail only used to go one way or both? We tried to imagine when the deer would go down to water or up to higher ground and what would influence them to go in either direction. For example, hot air rises during the day and sinks at night. Where would they go to be able to smell a predator? Where would they go to stay cool?

The group spent some time walking in silence. Such a heavily used trail could yield a wild animal sighting if we were careful. Soon, our main trail branched off left, then right, then uphill and downhill. Before long, three separate groups were stalking along deer trails, trying to spot the animals that had made them.

The slope and the top of the ridge were full of red pines. Those had thinned out, their place taken by beeches, ironwoods, oaks, maples, aspens and birch. The understorey had changed, too. We were seeing leatherwood and forest goldenrod. What would attract the deer to this area? Most likely the acorns and beech nuts, especially in fall and winter.

Alexis called us over to investigate a depression in the hillside and asked, what happened here? There were several such depressions, usually close to trees. Some of us thought they were caused by erosion. Others thought they were burrows. But Victor guessed that they were created when a tree had fallen over long ago, its roots pulling up all the surrounding dirt. It had happened so long ago that the trunk had disintegrated. He had guessed right, and we were shown where the signs of what happened could be found: the canopy. Surrounding the hummock were fast-growing aspens and birch, pioneer species that had grown up to take advantage of the sunlight that had been blocked by the big tree’s leaves before it had come down. If we could age those aspens, we might get an idea of when the tree fell – though a good guess would be 1954, the year of Hurricane Hazel.

Back to the deer trails: The main trail led out into another grassy field, so out we went to see where the deer had gone. The field was full of goldenrod, yarrow and asters, typical late summer forbs, and trails criss-crossed through the grass. Each of us tried to follow one, but it wasn’t clear where they were going or even if we were following deer anymore. We remembered an earlier lesson about what trails made by animals low to the ground look like when compared to trails made by animals with long legs. Maybe there were rabbits or raccoons in the area?

A few anthills dotted the field and before long, we were standing around one that had attracted Alexis’ attention. At over a foot wide and about 10” tall, it wasn’t the biggest one we had seen, but it wasn’t the size that warranted investigation; it was the accumulation of tiny, tubular scats on top. We were looking at a vole latrine. Why did the vole latrine here? Wouldn’t the ants bite the vole? Do voles eat ants, or are they strict vegetarians? We had lots of questions, and a flash of insight into small-scale landscape tracking.

Once we reached the other side of the field, we entered a lowland area of cedars bisected by a tributary. As we sat and had lunch, we discussed how deforestation in the upland areas had led to erosion, which meant silt running into the river. A siltier, shallower river in turn led to increased flooding and fewer salmon spawning, and that may have impacted an important food source for mammals in the area -- and a potential source of nitrogen for the plants and trees. They say our forestry practices have changed a great deal over the last decades. I wonder how.

Now that we were in the mindset of cause-and-effect, we were asked to go quietly out around the area and sit and observe. “What happened here?” was the question we were to ask ourselves over and over again as we looked at the landscape, the flora and the fauna. At the end of our exercise, we came together again and shared some of our key observations. Steve, a second-year tracking apprentice, said that he was looking at the water and thinking about how fallen trees might have changed the river’s path. Did some of the little islands have tree trunk foundations?

It was time to get moving. We climbed up gradually then climbed down very quickly into a valley carved by a creek long, long ago. As we climbed back up the other side, we stopped to marvel at a beautiful, fiery-orange salamander. Not long afterwards, we found another vireo’s nest at almost the same height we had found the first one in July. Alexis said he liked seeing so much bloodroot in one place. You don’t often see so much at one time.

In no time, it seemed we had returned to a well-worn deer trail like the one we had found at the beginning of our day. We walked in a line all the way back to the trail head. Mark said he could tell we were close to the meadow where we began because he could hear the crickets chirping. After another quick closing circle, we were done for the day.

What eye-opening lessons! Who knew that the anthill to the vole is as important as the ridge is to the deer? If you’re interested in learning more, here are a few books you might be interested in:

Reading the Forested Landscape by Tom Wessels

The Peterson Field Guide to Eastern Forests, by John C. Kricher

Written By: Christina Yu - 2nd Year Tracking Apprentice