Walking with Wildlife

At times, I complain about our rugged American walking life. We have trails, not walking paths. We walk in rustic, remote national parks, not through our cities. I have even – a time or two – been driven away from a walk by nature itself. But today, I am offering a tribute to walking with wildlife all around. It can be a remarkable and reviving experience of renewal. Isn’t that exactly why we walk?

I take a daily stroll around my central California coastal neighborhood. After four years living here, it still is refreshingly new. It is also more rugged than refined. The first thing I do is cross the famous Pacific Coast Highway, State Route One, always on the list for the world’s most beautiful and dangerous highways. The second thing I do is head for my usual path to the beach, filled with sand and stickers and the changeable route through the dunes.

Today, the third thing I did on this walk was stop in the middle of the path for this:

S/he didn’t move, and I worried. Should I just step around? Should I be concerned for its health? It wasn’t a rattlesnake, so I wasn’t afraid. It – a gopher snake? – looked to me like it had just eaten something quite big,

so I knew it might just be in that after-glow of a good meal. Snakes don’t loosen their belts, they lull.

A veeeery long snake…

at least 5 feet, and I couldn’t quite see the tail.

I retreated, and took a different path through the dunes.

Horses have accompanied me on every single walk I have ever taken on this beach. One or two or sometimes three ride along together. Today, a herd was there.

Tourists had to

jump out of the way

herd rode by.

Look closely, some were riding bareback. They frolicked and circled and raced and the riders hooted and laughed. When there are twenty horses and twenty people involved in this amount of hoop-la, it’s noticeable, even above the thunder of the surf. And then the horses and riders actually did surf. Or very nearly.

My usual walks also include a lot of this

and that

And if I am lucky, I can climb the steps up the bluff at the turn-around point of my walk, sit for awhile and watch nature’s show. Today, the show was spectacular.

lucky me

not a shark

As I sat, I laughed at the antics of the dolphins: dance routines, couple jumps, splashes that looked like pure fun. I admired the skill of the pelicans: their patient search and precise spray as they entered the water for the catch.

I stared into the horizon, hoping to see evidence of those enormous creatures that inhabit our coastline in the summer. I know they are there. But sometimes, I have to be satisfied with that knowledge, and not the sight of the blue and humpback whales.

This summer, I have seen a lot of them. They have been almost too close to the shore at times, almost dangerously close. Today they stayed in the hazy distance, treating me with occasional evidence of their seasonal trip. Like the human vacationers who come in droves, the whales come also each summer.

While I sat, a three-ring circus entertained me, including a pod of dolphins, fishing pelicans and whales in the distance. On the way back home, I checked on the overly-full snake, but found it wasn’t blocking the path any longer. Today’s walk was filled with the wildlife I have seen all my life. Not a city-life walk, but a walk peopled with creatures that have been my walking companions for a long, long time.