The following is an excerpt from my latest book, Becoming Nature: Learning the Language of Wild Animals and Plants which can be found in Step 7, Turn Invisible and Instill No Fear. I remember standing at the upper end of a shallow pool on a tiny stream early one morning and watching a large Snapping Turtle…
Tag: tracking
Where is the Tracking Snow?
Here it is mid-December and it’s been so warm that we joke about getting out the Maple syruping equipment. Usually we tap the trees in mid-March when daytime temperatures reach the 40s, but we’re already there. Usually we have knee-deep snow by now, and at least we got a couple of inches recently, which hasn’t…
Master Stalker
One afternoon in my youth, I became mesmerized by a Wolf Spider stalking a Fly on a sunny windowsill. It was as though I had become the Spider; I felt the dynamic tension he had disguised by his outwardly relaxed state, and I adopted his keenness of focus, while at the same time maintaining overall…
When the Tracker and the Tracked Become One
We modern trackers envision ourselves as enacting a drama between the hunter and the hunted. We are clearly the tracker–we have studied the science of tracking, we have honed our skills and sharpened our senses, and we focus all of our attention on the track that lays before us. A Native person sees himself more…
Zen Tracking
Tracking is in our blood. It is the first skill we practice — find mother, find the breast. We track instinctively, because tracking is as old as animal life itself — picture an Amoeba seeking a Virus to engulf or a Snail searching for a bed of succulent Algae. We are designed to track —…
An Elder Describes the Old Way of Tracking
A few years ago I presented a course on feather reading at a traditional skills gathering. At the same gathering, a colleague offered a workshop where the participants would attempt to follow the trail that he created by walking through the landscape just before the workshop. The trail began on a sandy beach, where his…
Water Stalking
The headwater wetlands of northern Wisconsin’s Eagle River, especially above the chain of lakes, are teeming with life. Wolves and Bears scout the shorelines, while Beaver, Muskrat and Otter, along with a host of birds, fill the waters. Expanses of marshgrass, wild rice, and cattails blanket the shallows, while yellow and white water lilies dapple…
Tracker Training in the City
Recently two people took a group on a tour of New York City—using a map of Copenhagen. Another group toured the city by walking an algorithm: take the second left, the next right, and the next left, and then repeat. A woman hung poster paper and magic markers in public places around the city for…
How to Read a Distorted or Indistinct Track
An animal’s track will often distort when an animal accelerates or changes direction on a slippery surface such as mud or wet sand. With acceleration, the track will elongate; and with turning, it will broaden. The same is true with animals traversing an upgrade or downgrade. I’ve watched people who are otherwise fair at track…
The Problem with Seeing Too Much
While hunting, a Serval (a midsized African wildcat) may pause for up to 15 minutes at a time, close her eyes, and listen for rodents. Why would she close her eyes to listen? We can gain a clue from blind people, many of whom can actually hear a solid object in front of them. They…