Walking Project 036_purified air – Mt Baldy from chris worland on Vimeo.

When I return home from day-long walks I often get asked seen any wildlife? The short and most common answer is nah. But that’s not really true. In fact, it’s a gross understatement, a little white lie that means I wasn’t mauled by a bear, eaten by a puma, bitten by a rattler, chased by a pack of coyotes, rammed by a deer or hissed at by a bobcat. On any given day, there is an abundance of life out there and it’s wild. Even on neighborhood walks, I will come across an assortment of birds, none of which I can name, except for the ominous raven, the occasional coyote licking his chops after feasting on someone’s beloved kitty, and squirrels of course–those guys are everywhere. In the San Gabriel Mountains, where I do a lot of walking, the squirrels are grey, and as you gain altitude, they are replaced, in the nut-collecting family, by skittish chipmunks that chirp as you walk by but never let you film them in close up, smart I guess. There also there is a variety of birds I cannot name, whose calls often sound familiar and friendly, and ominous ravens that appear larger than their urban cousins, although I could just be making that up. If you’re lucky you’ll get a rare Nelson bighorn sheep sighting, but don’t count on it; I’ve only seen two in fifteen years. There are deer, naturally, otherwise what would the pumas eat? This list is obviously not exhaustive; I am not a biologist, merely a distant observer, but it is missing one particular quadruped. Often seen doing push-ups on a sun-drenched rock, scurrying up the trail or simply surveying the landscape with nervous head jerks. I am talking about the gazillion lizards that you will not be able to avoid, especially if you, like them, don’t like cold temperatures.

We’ve recently had one of the scaly beasts take up residence in our backyard. I often notice it scaling a magnolia tree, our principal source of shade, twisting its diamond-shaped head this and that way, looking for bugs, dinner, but I can’t help seeing a domesticated dragon, from an ancient line of dragons, far more ancient than humans, watching over us, protecting us. Evidently, as I walk past our friend’s relatives on the trail, I am not to be trusted, and why should I be trusted, as a representative of the first species capable of self-exterminating? But I am allowed to pass, and therefore given a chance to breathe the purified air at the summit of Mt Baldy. For that I am grateful.