Tracker

“…once you take the time to look, and realize that there is a world – animal, vegetable, and mineral – in nearly every footprint, you begin to step more carefully.  It is the moments you spend looking, watching, and wondering about what you are seeing that bring you nearer nature.” 

Jim Arnosky, Nearer Nature – 1996.

Kora and I are out today; the first solo outing of the season.  Through a tangle of prickly ash in a nearby river bottom, I made my way southerly from where I had parked.  I hadn’t gone far when I happenchanced upon a blood trail on a weaving deer path.  I can only guess upon the cause, whether from a hunter on nearby private land, or a hit from a car on the nearby road.  I doubt that it came from falling through the sharp ice, as I found it in patterned splatterings, an obvious result of the racing pulse of a deer with wounded lungs.  I hoped it wasn’t from a poacher.  The wound had been true and most likely deadly, for the loss of blood was in great quantities.  Observations like these are what help me find stories in the out-of-doors that most people walk by without even noticing.

Unfortunately the mystery will stay in the woods, as the blood trail crossed a channel covered with thin, black ice with pockets of open water.  A mere 30 feet away I could see blotches of red on the ice of the opposite bank, but I dared not try to cross over to it.  I did attempt to work my way around the semi frozen oxbow, but it was not meant to be.  I have been hampered before from crossing into this area due to open water during warmer times of the year, but I was hoping to get over to it today.  Perhaps if we get a long period of cold weather I’ll be able to continue searching a few weeks from now on safer ice.  It’s been cold for a couple of days but we had rain and warmer weather before that, and more is on the way.  Due to this fact, the blood trail must have been within the last week or so.

And so I am sitting with the sun in my face writing in my journal with my leather mittens off.  My hands are getting cold, but it’s not terrible.  Kora circles by now and then as she sniffs, watches for movement, listens to birds, and eats dried grass.  She was on alert as a bald eagle called, landed in a tree 200 feet away, and then flew off.  Luckily she didn’t see the cotton-tailed rabbit race out from a thicket on our way in.  That would have been tempting to chase.  Although an opportunity like that would have been a great test as to whether Kora would listen to me as I called her off; a difficult decision over the hot scent of a wild animal.  I’ve been able to do just that numerous times with my other dog Kati, but Kora and I have yet to be in a predicament outside of our backyard.  Spending time together like this helps tremendously, however, and she is both intelligent and used to being free and having to listen to my commands.

Kora checks in while I am journaling

The sun is setting further in the west as the afternoon wanes.  The eagle called again, and I realize now that it’s still perched in the original tree.  It was a second eagle that flew by earlier that had caused it to call out.  It was an approaching eagle again now that caused it to call out again, only to reveal its favored roosting place.  It is time to cook a very late lunch and then head back.

A Sycamore on the Oxbow

Kora and I out on the ice of the oxbow

            Post-Script:  After eating my meal and hiking out, I came upon the same aforementioned blood trail in a different spot, back near the area where I had first entered the woods a few hours earlier.  Upon closer scrutiny I realized I had been following the trail in the wrong direction before; in my zest to make my way into that area of the forest I had failed to notice the details.  Now I saw the spray from the droplets splashing forward, as well as how it smeared on only certain sides of the grasses, sticks, and trees. 

Since it had come from deep in the woods, the wound must have come from a hunter and not a car.  I followed the blood for another quarter mile.  When I would lose the signs, I would backtrack to where I had last seen the trail and scout out in an array until I found signs of it again.  Although perhaps morbid in some sense, I relished the chance to try to solve the mystery, and kept hoping I would come upon the fallen deer at some point to give me the proof that I needed.  Death had been inevitable I was sure.  I couldn’t believe it could go so far, losing so much blood.  It was impressive, and I could only follow this story into the woods with deep, deep respect.  The deer’s drive to live, and keep pushing forth with an instinctual fortitude was almost beyond imagination.  All told, I believe it had traveled well over a half mile, depending on where it had first been shot.  I wanted to see, and touch something with that much determination and perseverance.  I never did see any other human tracks solidified in the occasional patches of snow and ice.  I wondered whether the deer had ever been found by its hunter.  I’ll admit that I secretly hoped that it had eventually swerved off the obscure trail, died on its own time, and that I would find it.  Its carcass would still be put to good use as it became nutrients for the eagles, coyotes, and other scavengers.  Unfortunately I soon began to run out of daylight, and also came to a property line for private land, and so I had to stop.  It is true I was slightly disappointed having to pull myself off of the trail, but I enjoyed playing the role of the tracker; reading the story, piecing together the clues, and walking in the footsteps of so great a competitor.

            See you along The Way…

“Bright, unsad failures they.  He seemed indeed to come back empty handed, but he really came home laden with the best spoils of the chase, and he knew it more and more, as time went on, till every day, at last, on the clear unending trail, was a glad triumphant march.”  

Ernest Seton-Thompson, The Trail of the Sandhill Stag-1899