It Starts with Awareness
The concept of awareness escapes many people. In an age of technology, most people have their noses stuck in a screen. I am guilty of this as well from time to time. Not that long ago, learning to track an animal was a matter of survival. People of all walks of life were able to track an individual animal (such as a deer) for miles and for days, even if that animal travelled in a herd. Today, we have forgotten much of this joining of art and science.
I would like to invite you to pick up this ancestral tool that I am laying at your feet. With a little practice, you will begin to notice and understand things that are lost to most people.Before we get into the meat of it, I would like to share a story with you.
I was camping by a lake in Colorado just east of the Rocky Mountains. I had lived in Denver for about 6 years at this point and I was beginning to gain my own sense of awareness. It was a lovely day, but before the sun began to set, the wind changed direction of its usual eastern direction and began to blow southerly (from the north). There is a farming town about two hours north of where we were called Fort Collins. Whenever a strong storm is coming, the wind blows on a north/south line along the rockies and carries the smell of pigs all the way to the Denver area. I smelled pig manure and knew that a storm was coming in about 30 minutes. We packed our folding chairs and cooler into the tent.
I was right. The storm came and went, so I went back outside to our campfire. Then it came again, several times. All I wanted was to sit around our campfire and forget the city, but the waves of the storm were putting a damper on our camping trip. Shortly after the third or fourth wave, something changed outside.
I saw bats – first a few, then many. At this point, I knew the storm was over. I knew what bats eat: flying insects such as moths and mosquitos. I also knew that bats are ridiculously sensitive to atmospheric changes around them, and so is their food. To go out and risk their lives when another storm is on the way is literally not on their radar. Flying insects are adapted to sense changes in the weather, otherwise, many species would be drastically reduced every time it rains. They “knew” it would be safe to come out because it is safe for the insects they prey on. Otherwise, they would be wastefully expending energy and potentially risking their lives.
It may seem obvious, but animals do not waste bodily energy like we do. It goes against survival and evolution, because they can’t just go to the grocery and get more food like we can. I finished the night by cooking brats and enjoying a beer.
Similarly, you must learn to think how what you intend to hunt thinks. For example, if you hunt turkey, learn all of the stages of its life cycle: When and where it nests, how courtship happens, how many eggs they lay, their predators, prey and parasites. Then when you think you have a good grip, learn some more. What do their tracks and signs look like? Get the picture? Peterson Field Guides are a great resource.
There are many levels to awareness, from people who are totally clueless (think of someone who can’t identify a robin) to a shamanistic awareness (someone like Geronimo whose level of tracking could reveal an entire story in the tracks of an animal). There are many kinds of awareness, but for this article, I am talking about nature awareness. There are many reasons to develop your tracking skills, but I would like to invite you to develop total awareness. This is a balance of using your senses and knowledge of nature to gain an understanding of your situation. In addition, I recommend books and courses by Jon Young and Tom Brown Jr., two people who have mentored my teachers.
How Yo Use Your Senses
This sounds so simple that most people wave it away, but it is where we get all of our information. Ask yourself “what am I observing, and what is that telling me?”
After a little practice, I have reached a level where I can tell what predators are in the area by what the birds are doing. I don’t say that to show off my superhuman powers. I say that to inspire you to push your depth of awareness. To take it to a deeper level, I would like to introduce you to a sensory exercise.
Do each of these in order, and you will have a hard time turning off awareness once those doors are kicked open. First, quiet your mind and then follow these steps:
- Sight: Put your hands out on either side of your face and wiggle your fingers so you can barely see them out of the corners of your eyes. You may notice your vision has opened up 180 degrees. Trackers call this using Owl Eyes. This is our dominant sense. Use it!
- Hearing: Push your hearing as far as you can behind you. Then focus your hearing in front of you. Then to the left, then the right. Push your hearing as far as you can. Try to find the farthest noise.
- Touch: Use your skin to feel where the sun is, or if you are in shade. What direction is the wind coming from?
- Smell: After you’ve found which way the wind is blowing, turn your nose towards the wind and glean what information you can.
- Taste: With your mouth slightly open, taste the air in alternation with smelling.
Once you’ve completed this exercise, try to hold all five senses at once.
The Art Of Questioning
Learn to play detective. For example, when arriving upon an animal track (or even a plant) I immediately start the cycle of questions:
- Who – Who left this track? This is for identification.
- What – What was it doing? Was it eating, running, hiding?
- When – When was it here?
- Where – Where was this animal going/where did it come from?
- Why – Why did it do this? Why did this matter to its energy budget/survival?
- How – How is it to be this animal? To me, this is the most important question, because it involves empathizing with what you are tracking and putting on “animal mind,” something all hunters should learn to do. This is where you start to connect an animal’s needs to its behaviors.
Here are two quick pointers to help learn the Where and When parts of your tracks:
- Learn to use a tracking stick. This is a straight stick with rubber bands or string adjusted to find the distance between two tracks. This helps reveal the “hidden” tracks in tall grass or coarse pebbles. Try to find 100 tracks – in a row
- Find a spot of fresh mud and push a stick into it about an inch. Make a row of other indentations with the same stick consecutively more shallow until you can barely see the indentation. Watch the row of marking and see how they erode in all weather. Do the same for all kinds of soils or substrates.
Habits Of Awareness
There are many habits you can adopt, but for natural awareness, they boil down to a few basic habits:
- Sit Spot – Find a place in nature that is close and safe. Practice sensory awareness there. Go there year-round and watch the seasons change and who eats who.
- Navigation and Mapping – Learn a few ways to determine direction, using plants, animals, the sun, moon and stars. Draw a map of your sit spot.
- Research and Journaling – Journal animals and plants in your area using field guides as research. Journal hazards and what to do to remedy the danger.
It’s Up To You Now
Like most things in life, you will get out of this what you put in. Be patient and kind to yourself. Find inspiration in what you are tracking by looking up what interests you. Many things can be linked to something like hunting deer, such as science, geography, history, native lore, or plants. You will be amazed how thorough your knowledge becomes. Good Luck!