Sunday morning dawned with the sound of
rain drumming on our tents. After a
soggy packing-up and an equally wet breakfast, the rain eased as we headed out
for the day. Those of us who had camped drove to join two more members of our
group at the Kimberley General Store (where I, for one, picked up a pie to take
home to my family!). We drove a few minutes down the road and entered a trail into
the woods. The sky was clearing now and
the temperature rising, but a fresh breeze and some cloud cover kept us comfortable.
Rain jackets were stuffed into backpacks, just in case.
The first stretch of the trail was bordered
by farmland. Tall grass on either side of the main trail revealed smaller
animal trails. We investigated one, noticing how the soil was compressed when
we pushed aside the grass. This small trail led straight to and through a tall
horizontally-slatted fence, which gave us some estimates as to the animal’s
size. As with the debris tracking of the day before, using our fingers to
gently examine the indentations gave us much more information than using our
eyes alone. We could see a track pattern that, along with the size information,
suggested a raccoon. Looking closely under the grass, we saw that heel pads and
toes had made an impression on the soil.
Off ahead, someone spotted a rabbit. In such a quick flash of movement it was hard
to tell the species. We pressed on along the trail and to a wooden bridge over
a rushing creek. Scratch marks in the wet wood mystified us. On the other side
of the creek, we found a large quantity of deer hair in several places, and a
lone deer scapula (shoulder blade). We crossed the bridge and continued to
follow the trail upwards, spotting deer, coyote and raccoon tracks on the way.
The trail upward was surrounded by cedars. Looking
around, some of us were struck by the high browse line on the cedars. We were reminded of how deep the snow had
been last winter. Alexis pointed out that this area is a highly used “deer
yard” in the winter, a place where deer congregate over the cold months to take
shelter in the conifers, browse the available vegetation, and make snow travel
easier by maintaining well-used trails. The deer had eaten everything they
could reach. And even with that, we
learned, many deer in the area had died of starvation and illness this long,
cold winter.
Our trail rose past the cedars and into a
hardwood forest. We cut off the trail
diagonally to the left, first climbing gradually, then increasingly scrambling
with effort. I had cleverly – I thought! – found myself a walking stick, but it
proved to be more hindrance than help as the trail got steeper, so I finally tossed
it aside and threw my whole body into the climb. Feet sliding in the
rain-soaked earth, testing a foothold on stones that occasionally slipped away
beneath me; hands grasping for stones, trees, and sometimes a rotten branch. For
a while the group’s attention was focused on the ascent. Occasionally, one or
another of us stopped for breath, to check that everyone was accounted for, and
to look around us: birch, beech, elm, maple, poplars, aspens. A brief break for
lunch on a flatter section of stone, and then upwards once more.
We were on a stretch of the Niagara
Escarpment crossed by the Bruce Trail, and heading up to the highest vantage
point overlooking the Beaver Valley, a spot known as Old Baldy. The last
stretch of our climb was more gradual and on a well-used trail. As the group
scrambled out to the rocky pinnacle, Jeff and I briefly stood back, our
attention drawn by a bird neither of us had seen before perched high up on a
branch and singing. Jeff did a bit of
quick research on the spot and identified it as a black-throated green warbler;
from a distance its colour looked yellow against the sky.
I joined the group at the outlook point, a
tall column of stone joined to the main cliff by a narrow bridge of rock. There,
in the soil, were more deer tracks. Even
at that highest, most treacherous, spot the agile and sure-footed deer had
preceded us. The view over the Beaver Valley was stunning. I wondered what the
deer had made of it – did they share any of my exhilaration at looking over this
vista? What a change in perspective to watch hawks and turkey vultures flying below
us. And feeling that momentary imagining of what it would be like to fly out
there with them.
We stepped back from the lookout, looped
sideways and upwards just a bit more, around some even taller cliffs. Some animal
sign showed us that other non-human creatures had preceded us. A group of four clear
slashes on a rock made us puzzle over their story, picturing a four-toed
creature slipping backwards as it scrambled over the rock. A fox? It was
reassuring to see that, like us, other creatures sometimes take a wrong step. Beside
us was porcupine scat in the rock crevices; and a large nest, likely vulture,
right above us. We climbed around large moss-covered boulders, trying not to
grasp the prickly gooseberry and currant shrubs growing in between.
Finally we began to scramble downward,
sometimes squatting or sitting to reach the next stable place to stand. Our
destination now was the source of the creek we had seen below, a fresh spring
gushing from the rock, which had once been a main source of water for the
valley. With some coaching from Alexis, we found the right handholds and
footholds to climb safely down to the creek and into the small grotto from
which the water emerged. We took turns filling our water bottles, drinking the
pure clean water, sitting on the rock ledges, resting our bodies, and breathing
it all in.
We left the spring refreshed, with water
bottles full. Our route back took us through hardwood forest, into a meadow and
again into the coolness of the cedars where we had started our climb. To the side of our trail, one of the group
spotted something white – a second deer scapula. A little further, deer leg
bones. Now some of us were scouring the area, sure that more of the deer would
be nearby. Mark walked ahead across a small clearing, feeling the pull of a
trail through the grass, and on the other side was the rest of the deer
skeleton. The skull, lower mandible, spine, leg bones, all scattered close
together. We examined the anatomy of the deer, had a close look at its teeth –
which were all intact – and realized that there were parts of more than one
deer in the mix. Alexis showed us how to
open up a bone to look at the marrow, the best way of assessing the health of a
deer prior to its death. The bone marrow of a healthy deer is creamy, and this
one was pink, a sign that the animal’s body was using the last of its fat
deposits before starvation. There was no sign of struggle in the area, and all
evidence pointed to an animal who had died of illness or malnutrition, and whose
body had been scavenged by other hungry animals.
As we walked back to the road, we were
again struck by how little accessible vegetation was left on the cedars. What
will the deer eat next winter? How does hard weather impact their population? The
day left us with new understanding but also some big new questions about the
life of the deer and their ecological relationships.
By Malgosia Halliop - 2nd year Tracking Student
