What’s going on out on the land?
Deeper Questions of Common Sign : Tracking at Kinghurst
This past Saturday was another outing with the Earth Tracks Wildlife Tracking Apprenticeship. We went out to the Kinghurst forest in Grey County, Ontario to see what we could find together. It was a small group of six of us, but that made it a little bit sweeter as we could really dig in to all of the things we were seeing.
Tracking journal for 2021.11.07
I woke up “early” because of the time change and realized I had some time before any other commitments for the day so I checked to see if anyone wanted to come out with me to go see the morning world. No one did, so like many other mornings, it was time to be spent between myself and the land around me. Perfect.
An unfinished tracking journal, still worth the read.
A mystery while tracking in Lake of Bays, 2022.08.13
The skill set of identifying a fresh trail with certainty in the jumbled quilt of the Summer forest floor is definitely an art and science with which I have little purchase… but a skill set that I do feel a growing confidence about is bone identification, and while making our way up the hill in the leaf little there was a small mandible laying fairly exposed with the lingual surface (the side which would be closest to the tongue in the living animal) facing the canopy.
Scapulae pt. 1
Detailing the scapulae I find, where I find them, and who they likely belonged to. I hope to turn this archive into a zine someday, and will make an effort to return to post more images or perhaps just make new posts as I go.
Tracking journal for June 13, 2021. Orangeville Sandpits
The first popsicle sticks were going in and I was coming up from behind everyone. A couple of people mentioned some details about some possible tracks, and others noted that they could see sand. I circled around trying to get a better view myself, but I couldn’t see much at all. Then the sun came out from behind the clouds, and the tracks appeared, with the popsicle sticks placed carefully behind the imprint of the heels. Two things clicked in that moment. I recognized the gait pattern in the popsicle sticks, and once that happened, I started to see the tracks.
Predated Mallard nest
Returned to a Mallard nest only to find that someone had come along and eaten the eggs. Thus began the search for clues to sort out who was the predator? An old fashioned whodunnit, tracker style.