Naturalist on the Run

My husband and I were talking about our interactions with wildlife while we run. Slowing down may allow a person to see more and experience nature more deeply, but we’ve witnessed some amazing things. Or, maybe running and seeing aren’t antithetical if you run as slowly as we do…

We’ve identified owls swooping through the dusk beginning their nocturnal hunting forays. One Great Horned Owl sat on a branch and watched us as we ran under its home tree. The bird could see more clearly than we in the crepuscular light, but we discerned its shadowy outline and slow, heavy wing beats.

We’ve heard Kingfishers scolding us and noticed them perching on branches overhanging the trickling river that runs through the Fort Collins natural area path where we run. Countless hawks have watched our progress along trails, and we have distinguished countless waterfowl species that make breaks from our run a “necessity.”

We’ve watched a fox leap over a snowdrift and pounce upon a rodent it had heard beneath the surface. We could see the mammal hanging from its mouth. A fox with a full stomach is the kind of ending I like, although I also can’t help but imagine childhood stories of happy mice wearing slippers, cozy in their burrow toasting bread for tea before a fireplace.

We’ve observed a solitary beaver swimming through a containment pond. Perhaps it was a bachelor reconnoitering a place to build a new community. Another day we saw him casually, sedately gnawing on a tree by the pond’s edge.

In mid-summer at the end of our final training run for a half-marathon, a skunk in the twilight scampered across our path. My first live skunk sighting, it was much smaller than I imagined a skunk would be, or maybe it was young.

I’ve enjoyed every one of these instances, but the mink we happened upon as it foraged in the creek beside the trail—although it quickly disappeared into the grasses as we rounded the bend—was one of my favorites.

Running is arduous, even sometimes painful, but exercising in Fort Collins Natural Areas provides rewards that, if not making running carefree, at least has allowed me to see what I might not have otherwise seen.