Flying Blind

This week Native Eyes met at Abbott's Lagoon, where the Marin County Tracking Club usually meets. The wind was howling and singing over the sand, so strongly in places that the tracks there would age to nothing in a matter of minutes. We spent the day playing with trailing and interpretation on these shifting dunelands.



Two fresh deer trails greeted us on the flat. We started trailing easily, but slowed to a crawl in more difficult substrates. We could see no tracks in the springy rushes, though our instructors pointed them out at times.



We wound up dividing, and each following our own ideas about trailing deer. One group felt compelled to run up the dunes. They looked down at the sand somewhere near the crest, and found fresh deer tracks galloping away from them. The crisp sidewalls of the tracks crumbled down as they watched. Keeping on the trail, they found it converging with those of other deer in the dunegrass, and followed until we were called back.

We took a brief intermission to eat lunch and look at the copious local otter sign. Here they've rolled in the grass and left lots of little snotty splats all around.



After our lunch and otter wander, we came back to a fascinatingly fun game on the sand flats. As we all turned our backs, three instructors walked around and did something, interacting with each other, in a pre-designated area. They retreated to one side of the outlined area and called us back. It was our job, then, to tell the story of what went on. After successfully interpreting the first simple turn-around in the sand, I felt effectively blind to the rest of the hidden story in the tracks. But after careful study and then relaxing into Owl Eyes (also known as wide-angle vision), I could start to put the story together. With all of us students helping each other out, the blind leading the blind, we found many (but not all) of the answers.



The next morning our dark-to-dawn bird sit attracted only the hardiest participants. We fox-walked through the steady drizzle, the feintest indigo of predawn and sensitive feet guiding us through the dark to our sit spots. The birds chorused with chips when it was still too dark to see them and then went about their business of feeding in the soggy brush with only a few notes of song. We were called in by a coyote howl after what seemed to be an uncharacteristically short time. Perhaps I'm starting to like going out before my morning tea, sitting in the dark and cold, and trying to listen for sparrow alarms? In any case, we gathered in the greenhouse to map what we heard and eat our well-earned breakfast. As always, some interesting patterns of alarm and silence emerged.

Earlier in the week, in our evening talk, Jon Young had introduced a practice called "Renewal of the Creative Path," inspired by the Haudenosaunee midwinter festival in which the Iroquois people renew their understanding of themselves, their connection to nature, their path in life, and their lineages. The Renewal process seems kind of like journaling and new years resolutions on steroids. I'm excited to begin. In preparation for the first part of Renewal, in which one reviews moments in one's life that exemplify connection to the Earth and nature, we launched into an exercise intended to get us out of our analytical minds and into our senses: a blindfolded Drum Stalk.

We had to find the drum, which beat from a far-off meadow. And we had to somehow keep our clans together as we walked blindly through brush and bramble. Many toes picked up many thorns on the way, some unfortunates became tangled in willow thickets, and some stepped off streambanks into thin air. We walked blind across two meadows, through brush, and over a creek. We scrambled up the creekbank to the drum, bruised, scratched, bumped and muddy, and electrically alive with sensory awareness. All clans had all members accounted for in the end.

A Cloverdale Whodunnit?

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This week was the Mentoring Nature Connection intensive at Venture. I could only stay for three days of it, but in those three days we discovered a murder mystery.

We were wandering Cloverdale Ranch with RDNA Essentials and Cultural Mentoring people. Many of us found ourselves drawn to the large willow thicket just south of Gate 1 and across the thistle-filled flats (ouch!). Two of the Native Eyes crew were the first there, and led the rest of us to their finds. They scared up a day-snoozing barn owl from the thicket. The owl flashed it's ghostly facial disk at the trackers, scaring them in return before taking wing.

We circle the thicket and enter from the south. Upon entering the thicket, the atmosphere changes. The willows and blackberry vines hold the air still, moist and cool. The ceiling of willow leaves filters the light to a dim green. The hair on the back of everyone's neck stands up as we enter, feeling watched. Is the owl still eyeing us, or is there another creature still in residence?

Our first find is a flattened spot covered with deer hair, with a pile of dried black goo in the middle. Our immediate thought is: blood.



Drawn further into the thicket along a well-packed animal run, we next come to the skeletal remains of dismembered deer parts. A set of hindquarters lies spread-eagled in the first clear area. It would look painfully vulnerable if it weren't already dead. Directly west is part of a ribcage, well-gnawed and picked free of meat. Just southwest of the ribs is a shoulderblade and foreleg.





Continuing along the well-traveled run, we duck through a tunnel in the blackberry undergrowth and come to another chamber. The ground is packed flat and vegetation is worn away. A cave of vegetation shelters the most worn spot, about deer sized or a little larger. We recover some hair from the trailing blackberries. It's short, tawny, fine, and tough to break. It does not kink when bent.



The northerly breeze carries the scent of rotten meat. We leave the willow cave and circle the thicket again to the east, and then north. At the edge of the trees lies more deer parts, these fresh enough to stink. A head, complete with polished antlers. The neck may still have ample meat on it. Spinal column still intact. Ribs all accounted for, but well chewed. Forelegs tenuously attached, one flung over the eyes. Hindquarters flipped and tugged a few feet away. The little bits of meat that remain are dry, feeding mites more than maggots. Just northwest, a small pile of fibrous stuff contained within a thin, dry membrane. Guts?







Following the eastern edge of the thicket north, we come to still more deer parts. This one has antlers in velvet, an attached neck and part of the ribcage. Legs are not in evidence. The face and ears have been chewed and eaten, and ribs are present but well-gnawed. This one is old and dry enough to have a much milder scent.



We explore the willow thicket and surrounding thistle flats for some time more, looking for clues. One person finds what he calls a drag trail leading from an animal run by the road, straight up to the polished-antlered buck. We try but cannot find any cougar or coyote scat near the carnage. Finally we settle down on some soft grass at the edge of the thicket for lunch, and tell stories until it's time to return to camp.

I've put together a map of the thicket's most interestingly morbid spots. I've placed each area of interest using memory only, so they may be inaccurate. But it'll give the general idea.



In addition to dead deer and ghostly owls, there was abundant sign of other animals in and around the thicket. All the blackberry, especially the tender new growth, was browsed by deer. There was lots of deer hair caught on many blackberry tendrils.



A woodrat left scat near the willow cave, and nipped some twigs. Just outside in the thistle brush, the land was thick with vole runs, tunnels, and dry scats. Rabbit runs, browse and scat lay everywhere. Deer runs, rubs, browse, and scat, too, was littered thickly all around.

Battle at Starling Hollow Cypress

Last week we tried to udate the base map of the field at Commonweal. We divided up the area and spent a large portion of the day on solo walks drawing out the runs and other track and sign on our areas.

When we came back together, we noticed a bunch of sticks poking out of a hollow in a cypress tree. Half our group clambered precipitously into the tree under the pretext of getting a closer look at the (possible) bird's nest, though really as an excuse to climb a tree. The other half of our group, logically, used the climbers' rear ends for target practice as they were climbing, thus sparking off the most epic battle of Starling Hollow Cypress (just down the hill from Double Skull Cypress) ever witnessed. Though the tree fort's defenders were deadly marksmen, it was only a matter of time before thir supply of cypress cone ammo ran out. Two hemlock spears and a dramatic death scene later, we were on our way back to our fire circle.

In the afternoon we worked further on the base map, discussed how awesome Native Eyes is going to be next year (it will, of course, be totally awesome), and gathered wild radish and nodding onion for our potluck dish. Wild radish is a bit fuzzy, but the young leaves are tender enough and very flavorful. With the onion, it made a delicious contribution to the meal.