Elementary, My Dear Walker

Tracking is a way of becoming intimate with one's environment, which includes the people in our lives as well. Ellis often takes his young son, Hunter, out on tracking expeditions, and this day I joined them by the banks of Paper Mill Creek in Point Reyes Station. He and Hunter often like to follow railroad tracks in different towns to see where they go, but today we were exploring the banks of the creek, looking for signs of wildlife, which were there in many forms: motorcycle tracks indicating a biker doing wheelies in an area off-limits to motor vehicles; a spittlebug's honeydew, deposited in the crook of a poison hemlock stem ("That's poison hemlock," yelled Hunter. "You can touch it but you can't eat it."); quail prints, looking very much like bicycle tire tracks on the dirt access road; and, as we crossed the road, there was that blue reflector set in between the yellow lines, and the fire hydrant directly opposite it. Blue reflectors are increasingly being used by fire departments to help them locate hydrants more quickly. (Did you guess it?)

Overhead, we heard geese, looking up to see the invisible tracks that a migratory flock makes as it wends back to its nesting grounds. But it was the track at ground level—an olfactory track—that most had our attention. "Skunk!" we cried, while scurrying away from the scene of another wildlife mystery unraveled.