I’m not trying to sell you our course, but to let you know that the processes we follow are really helpful (many of them, I’m revealing for free here in this Newsletter). That’s what we aim to be… helpful. We want more people to become trackers (and naturalists, guides, teachers, and scientists) because we believe that trackers observe more “things” around them, whether they are in the city or in a deep forest. Observation leads to making more connections between previously disparate things and to deeper thought about those connections. It might not happen with everything, but it happens often, over time. We want more people to feel comfortable outside, and to become as obsessive with noticing things as we are, to form relationships with land and non-human animals so that we all might be able to enjoy those things into perpetuity.

So, I get really excited when I see someone else, “get it.”

One of our students in our online course, Introduction to Tracking, at TrackerMentoring.com, Cris in Australia (!!!), @everythingleavesatrace, posted the following in our private Facebook group. Now, Cris is already someone who is experienced with naturalist studies, tracking, and connection to land, but it’s exciting that an introductory course about the Process of Tracking could help him go deeper.

Both posts are from the same area, same five days, where Cris kept a weather journal and did what we call a Ten-Minute Tracking Walk every day. I’ll post more later about the Ten-Minute Tracking Walk, but the idea is to go outside and look at the ground every day. If you only have ten minutes, that’s all you spend. If you have more time, you spend it. The pure exercise of just looking at the ground every day and seeing how the weather affects your own tracks from the day before, and the day before that, etc., is so valuable and underestimated. It’s the one exercise that I recommend the most, and I still attempt to do every day. It will teach you more than any other short daily exercise in your busy day. The foundations of repetition and consistency are the most important things about it. Setting a goal of ten minutes a day keeps you doing it, because we know we can set aside ten minutes. Then, when you can stay out longer, you practice identifying tracks and signs, or trailing.

So here is the conversation between Cris and I in the Facebook group for his two different exercises (posted with his permission, and without his photos, because it’s really the conversation that’s inspirational here.)

DAILY ROUTINE – Keep A Weather Journal

Cris: Location: Little Desert National Park, Wotjobaluk country, Victoria, Australia

I’ll admit that I haven’t always seen journaling as a strength of mine. Seeing the (nature/tracking) journals of some others, the constant consistency and detail – gave me some anxiety over such tasks. And to match this parallel, I’ve always been intimidated by track aging knowing how difficult it can be.

However, combined well with the Ten-Minute Tracking Walk, has made me realise how brief these tasks can be – brief but constant and consistent. And thus, a sustainable way to long-term analyse your (local) surrounds ecologically.

So after I made my journal, I initially documented by local urban area. But for the 5 days I have shown here I spent in the desert. A location I’d love to do more, and for longer. Of course it’s good to do these things in different locations, but this really felt like a very conducive location. Observing the subtleties of change, such as specifically in this instance referring to wind (strength) and wind direction, the relationships of different tracks and their ages, and the nature of the substrate here.

It’s also worth noting that I have been to this location before, and have identified it as one of my favourite tracking locations in Victoria. However, I had tracked in very different seasons and weather. Primarily in autumn/winter previously, and summer now: and though I was not studying the weather as closely at those times, at least superficially I compared my previous times to this occasion. Two primary differences weather-wise, is the temperature, and the other, is the amount of rain.

This isn’t a true desert, it’s one of the main types of arid regions in Australia. There’s actually even many types of habitats in this area of the national park, such as open woodland, grasslands, mallee scrub, dunes etc. So ones of the times I was here before, but just after relatively heavy rain. So there was even fungi around.

So the amount of moisture, affected how different tracks looked when I was here in those wetter seasons, compared to now when there’s almost no rain. Crisp tracks would only show in certain substrates – like that kind of sandy dust on top of firmer sub-substrate (I forget the geological term). And thus, the aging of tracks is so different seasonally.

But what I had not thought about as much, especially since such arid regions are not my usual tracking (and thus living) locations – is how different the animals present can be. In other words, I notice animals I hadn’t before because they are so much more active during this season. Namely cold-blooded creatures, like snakes and lizards. I saw them physically a lot, but also saw so many of their tracks. Previously, I had barely noticed them at all.

Maybe I’ll leave it there. But what I’ll say is this, I’ve had a bunch of “aha” moments as it were during this. Epiphanies about tracking and ecology. I even was obsessing about substrate equations in regards to tracks if you know something I wrote on one of the pages below. Likely my 10-min walk post will crossover with this a lot due to similar subject matter.

PS I’ve suddenly become the weather channel/app amongst my friends. I’ve realised how up to date with the weather I am whenever the subject arises in conversations haha

Kersey: I love these observations so much. The Ten-Minute Tracking Walk is the best exercise you can do to improve your tracking. Over time, you can incorporate all of the other exercises and information into it. Sometimes it’s only 10 minutes (or less, no pressure) and sometimes it lasts hours. Track aging IS intimidating because it is so vast, but the key is to just start looking, and look every day. Don’t make it so time intensive that it becomes prohibitive, just go out and look at the ground and make a quick mental note about how your tracks from yesterday (and the day before, etc) look today – exactly like you’ve done here. There are so many variables, as you mention, that go into it, and I find it fun to think about. The “desert” areas that I’m familiar with behave exactly as you describe here, and those gusty winds make the sand drift into places and scour it from the crust in others. I do believe that the reptiles are less active in winter, but still around, maybe the substrate just isn’t fine enough, dry enough, powdered enough, to capture their trails. Were the winds gusting predominantly from the east? Does this change seasonally? Are there any small shrubs or trees that have been shaped by them that you could tell? Where does the sand drift to and what areas can you predict that you’d find tracks vs ones that would be swept clean? What does a fresh track look like in all those little desert microclimates (on the path, in a drift, in a scoured patch, under the eastern side of a bush or the western side)? So many questions it’s endless… I just love it! And that’s funny about you becoming the local weather forecaster among your friends!

Cris: Lots of great questions! In regards to the wind, mentioned this a little in my 10-min walk post, but I believe the prevailing wind (at least when I was there) was a southerly – which I ascertained from my compass and observation of direction of grass/grass seed heads during most of my time there. But the wind direction changed towards the end – easterly. I’ll have to study the plants more if there is a pattern in direction, but nothing besides the grass stood out at the time. Re: reptiles, a factor may well simply be that I’m lacking in my herpetology knowledge, and thus they aren’t always in my tracking mind. It’s most that I saw so many of their tracks this time, along with seeing them out in the open a few times, I simply couldn’t ignore their existence. So I definitely have a lot of herp studies to do! The other questions I don’t know  Work in progress haha! Perhaps next time I go there (since it’s a favourite place of mine, maybe not be too far in future), I’ll ask you some questions of which questions I should be asking: like some additional “homework”

DAILY ROUTINE – The Ten-Minute Tracking Walk

Cris: Location: Little Desert National Park, Wotjobaluk country, Victoria, Australia

So much to say really in my Ten-Minute Tracking Walk here, not sure where to start. However, one main beginning observations I wanted to do was to simply see what happened to my own tracks over time in this context. In the pictures below I’ve compared the tracks change, day to day. Between day 1 and 2, it was around 12 hours difference, 2-4, 24 hours, and 4-5 around 12 hours again. My previous post shows my weather journal entries relating to thus contextual weather. From that, you can extrapolate that a primary factor affecting the tracks was the gusty wind, strongest in the earliest days and slowly calming which also correlated with rising temperatures. For some reason I neglected to note wind direction first two days, but from memory, the prevailing wind appeared to be a southerly, from triangulating between my compass and the usual direction of the grass (esp seed heads) over most of the days. However this changed towards to end with a dominant easterly.

But looking at the tracks, most (intricate) details appear lost in the first day. However, the gusty winds certainly heightened this. From day 3 my tracks resembled “blurry” tracks, and surmise around a week my tracks may disappear completely.

Knowing the specific age of my own tracks, gave me certain tools to estimate the potential age of other tracks, both human and non-human based on similar characteristics. And during my time here it made me think a lot about how all the tracks that I saw that weren’t “preserved” (substrate + moisture to preserve it), were creatures that had come through here likely within a few days. These animals were here, in the big scheme of things, right now.

However, I found (in my opinion) that there is so much context to all these potentialities. For example, I chose to place my tracks somewhere I would get detailed tracks, so I could see how the details would degrade over time. However, due to such things as weather/seasonal conditions and the substrate itself, the same principles of this specific substrate cannot be necessarily applied to another. The extreme example I found is loose, deep, dry sand. The type of sand that holds no detail. It is these kinds of differences that made me think a lot about geology, and the kind of equations you could try to make to judge what different substrates produce. Not sure if that makes sense. But perhaps in a way what I saying is how this experience has made me think more about how ageing, just like tracking in general, has a bunch of very specific contextual factors in order to deduce what it is that is in front of you. One size, does not fit all. But, of course, there are patterns, and I guess over time recognising these patterns (pattern recognition) more and more make the learning of a new place quicker. And in this case (since I’m linking the weather journal with the 10-min walks), it’s the weather.

I’d love to do more similar analysis of tracks over time, perhaps more of my own in greater detail, but also of other (wild) animals so as the develop more the pattern recognition details of ageing in their tracks.

There’s loads of other stuff that happened in these days in the desert, but I’ll maybe save some of it for some other posts.

Kersey: Ahhhgggg you’re killing me! I just love this one, too!!!! Yes! You are doing this right. I love it when people actually do what I suggest, lol! This. This is what track aging is all about. “Knowing the specific age of my own tracks, gave me certain tools to estimate the potential age of other tracks, both human and non-human based on similar characteristics.” Yes. So yes. And “…this experience has made me think more about how ageing, just like tracking in general, has a bunch of very specific contextual factors in order to deduce what it is that is in front of you. One size, does not fit all. But, of course, there are patterns, and I guess over time recognising these patterns (pattern recognition) more and more make the learning of a new place quicker. And in this case (since I’m linking the weather journal with the 10-min walks), it’s the weather.” OMG – you’ve got it! Keep going!

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