Wetlands Walk #1: Bobcat Walk

The wetlands in the desert holds a symbolic potency, of thirst being quenched, of a nourishing oasis providing balance in a harsh climate, of an underground secret finding its way to the surface.

Chris and I walking to the Wetlands

In winter, the wetlands is a quiet place. Today all the birds are gone except for the occasional raven cawing from above, the wind shifting the cattails and a distant sound of a plane. The snow, though now thin, crusty and patchy, still seems to be muffling the wetlands-world, insulating sounds with winter's white. The wetlands itself appear to be mostly frozen, however in some areas, the ice looks gray and fragile. Chris tries the ices adding his boot tracks to the lightly scampering ones left by rabbits, bobcats and coyotes out across the frozen, frosty, snow-dusted surface. But the ice does not hug the cattails. There are holes around the reeds, some surprisingly wide. I can't help asking outloud, "Do they produce heat?"

On our walk we are keen to spot bobcat tracks. We find likely candidates, but are more certain when we find several prints preserved in the mud and deep prints pressed into the snow. They have the round cat paw-ness of a bobcat foot, we think.

Without Chris's more skillful eye for finding the prints and his enthusiasm on the hunt, I would never have realized that there was a bobcat story written around us. I am grateful for the reminder that we share this land with such creatures, or rather that they share this land with us. Too often I forget to extend gratitude to my neighbors, both human and nonhuman. This first walk will remain in my memory as "bobcat walk." In the future may we see many more bobcat prints storying the banks of the wetlands.