On the peak of an abandoned shed silhouetted against the sunset, looking like hunched, leftover Halloween witches, are three roosting turkey vultures. As I return home, lines of black clouds appear behind them, backed by a sunset, a tapestry of orange, blue, and black on the horizon. An eastern spotted skunk pokes along the trail ahead of me. After yesterday's rain, the path was plowed by what seems to have been a skunk squad with help from armadillos. The wild creatures know that a trail made by humans is a way to riches. I'm constantly amazed at the natives that use my paths and amused by coyotes who deposit scat (feces) right in the middle as their sign of ownership. I am only the latest in a long line of trail makers, users, and transformers that once included marine worms, in the ocean-bottom silt of today's bedrock, and mammoths hunted by humans. Trails are a natural fact of life, but not suburban-style trails. We don't need to conserve energy, worry about predators, or concern ourselves with stabilized routes to reuse to make a living. We seldom walk very far anyway (one neighbor drives two hundred feet from house to swimming pool!). Natural trails made and repeatedly used by large mammals, including primal people, do not parallel creekbanks and become flooded, or run straight up and down hillsides and become gullies, but follow a diagonal or zig-zag (switchback) track.

All animals are instinctive trail followers, as trails afford the least cost in finding resources. After repeated use, trail following becomes subconscious and may be odor-marked. Pets follow trails in the house and yard, and humans have their own routines. Birds fly trails through the air and perch in the same spots. It is survival strategy. Natural trails are tested and reused if productive and safe. The same was true of city streets and country lanes before cars, although property ownerships modified them. Some modern walkways are for show, as any park or college campus reveals, since we are the only animals that afford inefficient trails.