A pile of hair is not a regular find on a country road.
Around here beverage bottles and aluminum cans are the usual findings, then food wrappers and gun cartridges, and finally the odd bit of clothing, discarded, lost from a pickup truck, or abandoned due to temporary memory impairment.
They all have their stories, but most are not particularly interesting.
But a pile of hair like this is a different matter.
They all have their stories, but most are not particularly interesting.
But a pile of hair like this is a different matter.
The obsessive dog groomers who walk their pets on the flume trail never leave hair balls like this.
It was unmistakably bear hair, and Fred sniffed it with more than casual interest.
But why was it there?
Did a hungry coyote chew a patch of mouldering bear hide there on the road?
Could the carcass be nearby?
I climbed down the bank into the chaparral, but failed to interest Fred in taking up a trail.
During the past two days he energetically examined two bear skids on steep road cuts in the canyon.
Now he was more interested in going home to be fed, and all I found were crumpled Bud Light cans.
I snapped a picture of the hair pile and made a parting poke with a stick.
That's when I found the Texas toothpick, one of the few unpaired bones found in the body of many male mammals.
Yep, it was a baculum, also known as the os penis or penis bone, a rare and auspicious find.
I took it and headed home.
