One day in early autumn I was walking along a gravel road that led to the house where I lived in western Washington.  I was coming down the final hill to a place where a creek flowed under the street when I started hearing song sparrows alarming intently at something in the transition area. 

I had heard song sparrows alarm many times before but this was the first time in my bird language career when I noticed a distinctly syncopated rhythm to the alarm calls.  Hearing the multiple birds calling in this way created a strange acoustical effect that made it sound like they were both trying to talk over each other. 

It caught my attention and I was very curious to figure out what was happening.

As I moved in more closely I slowed down & started walking softly so that I wouldn't disturb whatever scene was taking place.  The feeling I got from the whole situation was an intense fear for safety coming from the sparrows.  It was as if that fear was coming through the sounds they were making. 

As I peered over the edge of the street I suddenly saw the source of their distress as a small bird about the size of a robin popped up to land on a vine maple. It looked me right in the eye and I could see it's hooked beak, large eyes and curious stare clearly in front of me.  It was a pygmy owl! 

The sparrows responded to the new location of the owl and adjusted their views to account for the zone of safety they had to maintain around it.  They seemed really worried...  I had seen pygmy owls before(even one in the midst of eating a varied thrush) but never with this much alarmed intensity around them.

What was it about this owl that had stirred up the sparrows so much? 
Was it hunting time?  Does this owl have a reputation along the creek?
Maybe the alarms had always been there and I just hadn't noticed them.

I watched as the pygmy owl flew down the creek & out of sight only to be chased by the sparrows.  It was cool to notice that I could hear the location of its new perch by following the movements of the sparrow alarms.

I listened for a couple more minutes and then the sounds started to die off.  The sparrows came back along the creek towards me and went back to their usual maintenance behaviors.

Realizing that the owl had flown off in the opposite direction I continued on my way and left the song sparrows in peace.

A few weeks ago I went to Ontario to assist with a program called the Art of Mentoring.  It's a big gathering of naturalists, mentors and people curious about nature connection.   We come together once a year for a week of learning about nature and methods for connecting people outside as a community.

The tenting area was a fairly long distance from where we would meet up in the morning.  In order to get to and from the tent meadow you had to either take a dirt road that went along side a horse paddock or walk along the trail that went parallel to the road on the other side of the horse paddock. 

On the first night I was there I decided to take the trail instead of the road to get back to my tent.  It was already dark and I walked swiftly but quietly along the trail, straining my ears to listen to all the subtle sounds in the bushes.  The cool air was wonderful and a beautiful starry sky stretched out overhead. 

This area had a lot of deer, raccoons & skunks.  I wasn't worried about the deer and raccoons but I certainly wasn't interested in upsetting any skunks. 
Attempting to detect skunks when walking along a dark trail at night definitely peaks your senses & gives you good incentive to pay close attention to your surroundings.

As I approached the horse pasture I heard a sound coming from an old shed.  I stopped & listened for a little while.  It sounded like some sort of animal.  Maybe a weasel?  Or a raccoon? I couldn't be sure but I was tired from the day of travel so I kept going and had a great sleep under the stars.

The next morning I woke up early and started heading back along the trail.  The birds had already woken up and were making various dawn songs & feeding calls.

As I was walking alongside the horse paddock I started hearing song sparrows alarming maybe 100 yards up the trail.  It sounded like they were alarming at some sort of ground predator.

As I scanned up the trail I realized that the alarms were coming from very close to that old shed I had passed the night previously.  the birds were perched almost exactly where I had heard the noise from that animal.  This was my chance to figure out what was going on.

As I approached the shed I slowed down & started watching for any sort of movement in the bushes.  I caught a glimpse of one of the sparrows & noticed that it was looking to the other side of the trail.  That's when I noticed shaking & movement of a young tree out past a big patch of goldenrod that bordered the trail.  My mystery animal was right on the other side of that goldenrod.

I started stalking into the bushes being careful not to make too much noise. 

As I got in to the center of the bushes I saw movement from an animal but it was still too hidden to tell what it was.  I was watching for when it would come into view and then suddenly two juvenile raccoons rolled right out into an opening where I could see them perfectly!

They seemed to be play fighting because they were grabbing on to each other and rolling around on the ground.  I watched them for a couple minutes as they did this and heard some of their whimpering calls to each other. 

I wasn't sure if there were more around and I wondered if their mother might be nearby but I didn't see her.

After a few minutes I slowly stalked back out of the goldenrod so I wouldn't disturb them and headed off on the trail with much gratitude for the sparrows that helped me solve another mystery.

Three years ago I took a trip to the Olympic Peninsula with my classmates from a year-long nature immersion program I was taking part in.  We were spending our time in an old growth forest that had massive Sitka spruce, Doug fir & cedar trees edging along a big sandy beach where you could spot sea otters & sea lions & lots of shorebirds. 

We had hiked out to the ocean in the morning and spent the day on the beach.  It was a full day of nature mysteries, tracking and exploration.  As the afternoon waned we headed back to our camp next to one of the lakes further inland. 

The trail took us along boardwalks and dirt paths through bogs & forest with huckleberry & other wild edibles.  I was separated between two groups & wasn't sure how much space there was ahead of me or behind me to the next person. 

This was early on in my learning journey with nature observation and I was focusing really heavily on learning to reduce my presence through the eyes of the birds so that I could walk in their territories without upsetting them.  I had been told that if you can learn to walk softly & not disturb the songbirds then you'll get to see more wildlife because the animals won't be forewarned of your presence by their alarms.

So I was walking along the trail using a style of movement that kept my footfalls quiet & when I would come across birds feeding on the trail I would wait until they were done or until they had moved off to the side so I could pass.  I got into a really nice, quiet rhythm & noticed that as I moved along I was hearing bird song around me in every direction.

After a few minutes of this I was moving through one of the bogs when I heard the sound of varied thrushes up ahead in the next wooded area giving out their thwapping alarm calls. 

"Did I cause those alarms? I must have missed something because they seem upset with me." 

Part of me felt like there might be an animal up ahead but I thought it was more likely that I had done something to disturb the birds.  I continued moving along the boardwalk to the wooded area still doing my quiet movement when suddenly I heard rustling off to my right in the bushes.  I stopped and looked but saw nothing. 

What was making that sound?

I slowly moved forward on the boardwalk & as I turned a corner I saw up ahead from 30 yards coming around the edge of a massive tree was the biggest black bear I have ever seen.  I was so shocked at this massive animal right in front of me.

My mind raced from the first moment I had heard the alarms, to the sounds in the bushes and then back to this bear in front of me.  I realized I was standing right in between the bear and whatever had been making that other sound.  What had I been hearing in the bushes?

Could it have been bear cubs? 

I started backing away just to be safe.  I didn't want to get in between a mama and her babies. 

It seemed like the bear hadn't spotted me but in my diligence to keep my eyes up as I backed away I had forgotten about a turn in the board walk.
I put my foot back one last step & fell right off the edge into the bushes with a crash. 

I peered up over the edge of the walkway just in time to see the bear bounding into the woods away from me.  I was glad to discover that this bear was more afraid of me than I was of it.  I never did find out what caused the rustling in the bushes beside me.

A couple years ago I took a trip to San Juan island with a group of teens that were piloting a new once a month weekend nature connection program called The Wild Within.  San Juan island has a lot of red foxes and we were hopeful to see some of them. 

Part of the island is a big prairie with a forest edge on one side & the ocean on the other.  We had heard it's a great place to spot foxes and European hares so after we set up camp we headed over for a day in the field.

Almost as soon as we were out of the van we noticed up on one of the hills a rusty brown object moving along the grass.  It was our first fox of the day.  We watched it trot along and then find a place to lie down & soak in the morning sun.  Our adventure was already off to a great start so we headed off to explore the rest of the landscape. 

We wandered through the fields looking at wildflowers, signs of European hares, and watching the antics of harriers & crows fighting over voles(that's another story).  After wandering for about an hour we came across an area where there were pockets of shrubs segmenting the zone of the field we were in.  There were lots of edges & good hiding places for birds & other wildlife. 

As we were walking through this area we suddenly spotted an animal in a stalk along the edge of one of the shrubby pockets.  At first it looked like a cat because it was black and moving slowly along like a hunting feline.   

We lost sight of it and fanned out to see if we could spot it again.  That's when I noticed a small bird pop up maybe 3 ft into one of the shrubs.  Then another one popped up on a different shrub across an opening.  It looked like some sort of sparrow but it wasn't any sparrow I was familiar with.  They didn't make any sound of alarm but they had obviously been forced up by something on the ground. 

When we got a sight-line between the sparrows we saw our mystery animal.  It had a long snout, big pointy ears and a white tip on it's tail.  It was definitely a red fox... but why was it black?  We discovered that a large portion of the foxes on the island are a dark morph of the typical red fox.  It's strange to see families of foxes where brothers and sisters from the same litter can be two completely different colors.  Who would have thought?

The fox trotted off and weaved through the bushes.  It was impossible to see as it moved along but if you raised your eyes and looked out towards the area it was moving through you could see sparrows popping up one by one as the fox went along. 

This experience really taught me how important the use of the eyes can be for tracking bird language.  Anyone who didn't keep their eyes up & vision stretched out would miss the flickers of activity as the sparrow flew up popcorn style to show where the fox was moving through. 

To wrap this whole sequence as I followed the trajectory of the fox by watching the sparrows I managed to catch one last glimpse of the animal and confirmed my interpretation of the bird language.

That evening we were back at our campsite finishing our meal.  It was dusk and we were sitting around the fire recounting the stories from our day.  We chatted about wildflowers, hares, all the great tracking & just as someone brought up the foxes who should trot into our campsite and sneak along the edge of our circle but one of the dark morph red foxes.  What are the chances of that happening? 

It was awesome to develop those connections with the foxes and that was just one of the highlights from our experience on San Juan island.  I'll share more soon.

Our chickens had quite the life living in the foothills of the cascade mountains where cougars, coyotes & coopers hawks frequent the land.  We had already learned a tough lesson about the fragility of chickens from the bobcat.  But even normally nonthreatening creatures can wreak havoc under the right circumstances. 

It was late midwinter and snow was on the ground in enough concentration that it created excellent and somewhat rare snow tracking conditions.  I had spent the day following the trails of coyotes & bobcats & deer trying to identify the tiny tracks & patterns of mice, shrews & weasels.  I was surprised to discover that almost everywhere I went I kept coming across trails of the Virginia Opossum.  I had no idea there were so many of them in the area.  It's amazing how snow can show us formerly unseen worlds with new eyes. 

As I was heading home I noticed the trail of a particular individual possum moving parallel to the road I was walking on.  It was a private road more like a shared driveway that only saw a few cars every day so the snow was still present and you could make out the tracks of the possum as they crossed over and headed into the bushes. 

A little bit further along I saw the trail again as the road took a turn west and intersected with the trajectory of the possum.  When I arrived home I noticed the trail a third time coming out of the bushes and heading straight through our property. 

The next day when I went out to my sit spot I noticed there were possum tracks all over the field.  They seemed to be everywhere and I wasn't sure if there had just always been a possum around our house or if there was something special going on in their lives that was causing them to be so present. 

I mentioned all the possum tracks to one of my housemates and he said "Oh yeah, I've been seeing a possum in our garage." He had seen it in there multiple times over the past few days.  When I looked at all the possum trails in the area I realized that they all pointed back to our house.  All the trails were pointing to where it was making it's home at present... Our garage. 

Possums are apparently semi-nomadic & will stay in one place for a few weeks before moving on to fresh grounds.  It had been in there for a while so we decided to leave it for a bit longer to see if the possum would move out of it's own accord. 

Then one night long after the sun had gone down, everything was quiet outside & we were sitting with a few friends in our living room when we suddenly heard a noise of utter horror coming from the chicken coop.  It was the ducks & they were absolutely freaking out about something.  Thinking it had to be the bobcat again... a couple of us ran out the back door.  We got out just in time to see the tail of one of our ducks running blindly out into the night.

As we approached the coop who should we see waddling away from the crime scene but our resident possum.  It turned & showed it's bright blue eye glow & then crawled under our fence to disappear into the night.  It must have found some way to open the coop door and spook the ducks. It had vacated our garage and that was the last we saw of the possum.

We followed the duck tracks through the snow in an attempt to recover our friend but lost the trail when it got down to the creak.  It was so freaked out about the possum that it ran away into the night and never came back. 

What's the takeaway lesson from this story?

Never trust a possum.

When I lived at the homestead in Washington I was participating in the second year of a two year nature connection & leadership program that took place in the foothills of the cascade mountains.  Besides my own learning journey around bird language & animal tracking, every week I was practicing mentoring & community development as a way to help local home school kids connect with nature. I didn't go into town much & I had lots of time to explore & learn about nature & other interesting topics like how to take care of chickens.  We had a small flock of six chickens and four ducks that provided ongoing nourishment and entertainment.

This particular story takes place one winter day when the weather was mild & all the robins were still up in the hills.  They hadn't yet been forced down into the valley because there was still a lot of insect activity during the daytime.  To save on chicken feed & give them a more natural diet we were free ranging the chickens and they were quite happily filling their crops with the fruits of their forage on a daily basis.

I was inside the house working on some tracking journals when I noticed the ducks outside giving off a repeating agitated alarm call.  I looked out the window but saw nothing except that the ducks & a couple of the chickens were all looking towards one edge of the field that couldn't be seen from my window. 

I went into a different room to get a better look and saw that the rest of our chickens were out in the front yard beside our driveway. They were all looking at something that was very directly visible from where I was now standing.  My heart skipped a beat.  There in the center of our driveway stood a big hungry bobcat and it had it's eye on our chickens. 

I ran to the front door & opened it to go out but just as I did, the bobcat pounced, grabbed one of our chickens and bounded over the edge of the road and down the little drop-off to the creek.  I couldn't believe it.  That bobcat just stole my chicken! 

Without even thinking about what I was doing I called out "HEY BOBCAT!" and ran to the other side of the road.  When I looked down the little 10 ft hill... there down by the creek looking up at me with wide eyes was the bobcat.  It was completely still and staring right at me.  We looked at each other for a few seconds & I had no idea what to do.  I felt torn between wanting to save the chicken & wanting to preserve my relationships with the bobcat.  The tracker in me realized this was a great opportunity to observe some rare hunting behavior & bird language.

I knew it was too late for the chicken so I called out again in a less confrontational voice & said "OK, you can have it."  As if the Bobcat was waiting for my permission it turned & trotted into the bushes. 

As I brought my attention away from the predator I noticed that all the robins in the area were watching & making a lot of agitated calls... whinnies and tutting sounds.  When I listened along the creek I could hear juncos making their characteristic tacking alarm call like the sound of stones tapping together.  I listened as the alarms moved slowly through the thicket & eventually came to a stop where I assume the chicken was consumed. 

Over the next 30 minutes the landscape gradually came back to harmony.  The birds were feeding again & we started keeping a much closer eye on the chickens for the next time the bobcat would try to steal a meal.