#🐾 coyote tracks

[carrioncoyote]

If you were on Vulture Culture Tumblr in the early 2010's, you might recognize this sweater.

[lacenvs3000w24]

signs in nature🌲🐾

Welcome to this week’s post! For the “free spot” theme of this week, I thought I’d talk a bit about some of the subtle aspects of nature - the hints and clues she gives us about her story as a whole, all while maintaining her exciting traits of mystery and wonder.

I was prompted to choose this topic because of some of the things we’ve been talking about in ZOO 4950 (Lab Studies in Mammalogy). Last week, we bundled up and went out into the Arboretum to talk about tracking. We spotted lots of squirrel tracks, as well as those of a cottontail, a deer, an opossum, and potentially those of a coyote.

left - deer tracks, and a human 👍 ; right - whose little hand do you think this is???

As a little bonus, just to really top it off, we paid a friendly surprise visit to a tree-dwelling porcupine.

photo I took of our porcupine friend in the Arboretum in Guelph

This sparked another sign-oriented conversation, though. We were told about how a porcupine dwelling is simple to spot, essentially because of how nasty these lumbering critters are. Basically, they don’t have a knack for tidying up - they decide on their homestead, which they stay at until it is so overrun with scat that they are forced to relocate. Gross, but also kinda charming, no?

Later in the week, during a little decompressing nature walk by speed river, after a second glance at a tree trunk, I realized I was in beaver territory. there were probably about 3 trees in a 5m radius marked with the teeth etchings of nature’s carpenter.

image sourced from: https://nhgardensolutions.wordpress.com/tag/beaver-damage/

(↑↑↑ real photo credit should go to the artist...a beaver made that!)

These signs may seem like nothing special to someone just passing by. I think it’s fair to say that most people would find it a more special occasion to actually spot one of these critters at work, these these marks and signs. I don’t think I have to do much to convince you all, though, that with a little bit of background information, there’s an entire story to be unraveled.

It can be hard to feel connected to nature in our semi-urban lives, where it seems that most of the things around us - buildings, streets, or (Mother Nature forbid) litter - are exclusively signs of human life.

One tangential point here that I think is really interesting is that nature’s signs are how human beings (and arguably, life across the board) were able to survive in more “rugged” (aka, natural) territories for so long. One of my latest Netflix fixations was a show called Alone, where contestants compete for a cash prize by trying to last the longest alone, in the wild, with only a handful of starting materials. The season I watched took place near Great Slave Lake in the Northwest Territories. The contestants used tracks, scat, even hours of sunlight, to help them find their next meal.

So, if the elusiveness of the animals is getting you down - during your own travels or during a guided walk, for example - you might not actually have to look much further to extract an engaging narrative from your surroundings, or to catch a glimpse into the unravelling nature tale around you.

Thanks for checking in!! 💚💛

[heatherwitch]

Coyote pup tracks!!!! A first for me 😍🐾

[carrioncoyote]

Making a tiny sketchbook/journal this morning!

[carrioncoyote]

Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl spoilers without context.

[carrioncoyote]

To the dead coyote I passed on the road tonight

You and I are not so different

We're just strange creatures trying to survive in an increasingly hostile world

I've had a lot of close calls lately

How easily it could have been me laying there on the asphalt

Not yet

But I'm sorry it happened to you

You did your best

Rest well, fellow

[carrioncoyote]

I don't think anyone around me realizes just how exhausted and sad I am.

[carrioncoyote]

Messy journaling about seeing the aurora earlier this month.

[carrioncoyote]

Another journal done. Took me just over a year to fill it. It doubled in thickness from the amount of stuff I pasted into it! Gonna miss the sticker collection on the back.

Hoping to literally close the book on some Things that happened this year by filing this one away in my little archive. Excited to move on to the next one!

[carrioncoyote]

Watched Wicked pt 1 a second time. Spoilerific thoughts under the cut.

I just keep thinking of these things, over and over, on repeat in my head:

The opening is so good. Great use of the overture.

Adding notes from For Good so early on. I got teary every time they popped up.

The REAL SETS. The PRACTICAL EFFECTS. THEY PLANTED THOSE FLOWERS. THEY BUILT THAT TRAIN. THEY BUILT THE WIZARD’S FACE.

I never thought I’d love Fiyero’s character, but now I do. Thanks Jonathan Bailey.

The Ozdust Ballroom scene. How it’s so much slower, sweeter, and much more moving than the stage version. Tears spilled over at that part.

The inclusion of more Animals. I am beyond grateful for it. Dulcibear my beloved.

The extended Defying Gravity sequence, but especially Elphaba hearing every horrible thing ever said to her as she plummets off the tower. I felt that.

This musical has meant so much to me since my teens. It was former close friend and mine’s favorite for a long time (I will never not think of them when I hear For Good). I was able to connect with my mom through it because of her love of the Wizard of Oz (she shared that film with me when I was tiny). The movie’s not perfect, but seeing Wicked adapted so lovingly was… so nice.

I truly expected this movie to be absolute shit, and I’m so glad to be proven wrong. I can’t wait for part two.

[carrioncoyote]

I am so excited to hang this in the kitchen.

Monte Dolack is the artist and he’s painted a bunch of scenes like these. I want them all.

[carrioncoyote]

[carrioncoyote]

Adding shadows to the walls of the cave.

[carrioncoyote]

I got a very nice birthday/Halloween/moving card wanted to keep the paper charms it came with.

[carrioncoyote]

Caitlin Doughty's new video is a prime example of why I don't trust people who "sells human specimens/uses them in junk art because wow I am so dark and artistic and quirky."

[carrioncoyote]

My Covid-concious ass opening windows and putting on a fan when I have company