From the time I was around eight years old until I was twenty-nine, I was immersed in nature. As a young boy, I spent almost all my time outside and was often in the woods exploring and catching everything I could get my hands on. Somewhere around the 6th grade, it became a little more organized as my interest in snakes grew and I turned to books to learn more about them. As I have said elsewhere, my interests grew to include all animals. It was not a surprise that I became a biologist. But at twenty-nine, I 
left my job as a biologist so I could provide better for my family. (Being a biologist was great fun until payday). Sadly, I immersed myself so deeply in my new occupation that I completely left all my interests in the outdoors behind. I occasionally took a short venture in the woods or desert and I did do a little nature photography when the chance presented itself. There are a lot of sad parts about this but the worst is that I quit adding to my nature education. The years have shaved off some of the knowledge that I had and I find myself having to refresh myself with facts and information on broad areas of biology. Luckily, I have retained a great deal as well. I still feel I have a good base. I just think about how much more awareness and enjoyment I would have now if I had continued my education in the outdoors and kept adding to it through the years.
Well, all I can do now is pick it back up and immerse myself in it once again. The training with the Texas Master Naturalist (TMN) program has helped with that. It has also been enlightening in many ways.
This past weekend was the final weekend of the basic training for the new class of the Cypress Basin Chapter of the Texas Master Naturalists. Instead of our usual location at the Wildlife Management Area at Caddo Lake, we were on a private lake at the Wilkes Power Plant in Marion county. It is a beautiful location and was such a great place for our excursions.
We had a nice presentation on mammals and on the restoration of native grasses, but, for me, the show stopper was on animal tracks and tracking.
Before the class, I was mildly interested in the topic but it wasn't really exciting to me. Since my childhood days in the woods, I always had some interests in animal tracks. As a boy scout we used to make plaster casts of tracks on our overnight camping trips to Camp Wisdom. I enjoyed all of that and have continued to examine tracks when I was outdoors. However, I was missing out on how much fun it really could be.
The instructor of the class was Heidi Kryger-Bailey with the Texas Parks & Wildlife, who is a tracking expert. She and Vanessa Neace, biologist and adviser to the Cypress 
Basin Chapter of the TMN, went out before the class started to mark some tracks in the woods by our classroom. They were gone quite a while and I really wasn't expecting a great deal. I thought we would see tracks of raccoon, opossums, maybe a skunk or squirrel. Not too exciting.
I was wrong. We saw tracks of raccoon and squirrels, as expected. We also saw tracks of fox, crows, crayfish, smaller birds, and a frog. We also found scat of raccoon and that of otters near a otter slide into the lake. The different tracks and their indicated activities was really interesting. Well, it was more than that. This is the kind of outdoor fun that I really enjoy. I don't know how I have missed the significance of it. In a way it is like realizing that bird calls are a big part of birding and make that activity so much more meaningful. Tracks do the same thing. No matter how stealthy you are, it is hard to actually see many of the elusive animals when you go out in the woods and fields. What fun it is to not only see some animal tracks, but to be able to identify what they are and get some idea of what they were doing. It adds another layer to the outdoor experience.
Finding the tracks of a frog and crayfish also had a special significance to me. Maybe significance is not the correct word; perhaps I should say that I was impressed and it helped whet my appetite for more.
In our tracking training, there was a lot of information about the importance of gait, foot placement, and other tracking details that revealed so much more information. There is just so much more to it than I had considered. Another door has opened.
Now let me confess something. I was fair at best in identifying the tracks. There were a couple of others in the group who were quite skilled. I must admit that this inspired me to get better. Naturally, my method for this is the same as always, I bought a book. I got on Amazon.com and ordered Animal Tracks by Olaus J Murie and Mark Elbroch, a Peterson Field Guide. While I was there, I also ordered Trees of Texas by Stan Tekielo and Wildflowers of Texas by Nora and Rick Bowers, Stan Tekielo. Books are always my gateway to more knowledge.
So now I have several areas to "get into". I must learn to identify local trees. I would like to know more of the local wildflowers and now I must learn more about animal tracks.
I can't wait to get out with the book and see what I can find in the woods across the highway.
Michael is a former biologist and Texas Master Naturalist. Originally from Newsome, Texas (Between Pittsburg and Winnsboro), educated in Dallas & Garland schools, then off to the University of Texas system where he received a degree in biology and worked as a biologist with the University of Texas system. After many years away from nature and biology, he relocated to the banks of Lake O' the Pines where he has been rediscovering the joys of nature. He is somewhat surprised that he has become a birder. Most of his interest in nature was centered around reptiles. Perhaps just like birds evolved from reptiles starting in the late Jurassic, he has begun his own evolution. During his formal education, his interests in biology/nature grew to include community ecology and population studies, all with a binding of evolutionary processes. He liked birds, but they were secondary at best. All at once he finds them fascinating.
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