Alrighty fellers! I took my camera with yesterday to the woods, and thought I would get 4 or 5 animals, but exceeded my expectations. I normally am mostly looking up (at the trees), but took the opportunity to focus on the tracks today. I think I did alright. The pics are not the best, but there is a lot of them. I look forward to what everyone else comes up with.
1)Ruffed Grouse (I actually saw him 30 seconds later) Other options from the tracks would have been a spruce grouse or blue grouse. both of which are rarely seen in this area by myself, blue grouse having fairly feathery legs and stick to higher elevations, spruce grouse would be fairly similar in size, but as I said rarely seen in this area.
2)Rabbit - snowshoe hare, the snow was about 2 feet deep, but there was a hard crust and only 1/2 - 1 inch of soft snow on top leaving smaller rear foot tracks than would be normal. Only rabbit track I saw while walking that day.
3) Bobcat - I was truly surprised by the amount of bobcat tracks. I saw them all day in the fresher 1-2 day old snow on top of the crust.
Here is where a cat sat and gnawed on a bone and then marked the spot.
4)Whitetail Deer - Winter range. sign everywhere. (should also mention mule deer here, saw none, but could not rule them out form some of the larger deer tracks seen. Did see several whitetail)
5)Mountain Lion - I followed this track for some time trying to get a good shot. the stride and track size were obvious from some distance, but it was walking mostly in frozen deer tracks on heavily used trails and didn't give me much. this is up close. Not the largest I have ever seen, but probably not something a deer would like to see coming down the trail.
6)Pileated - I was looking for mountain pine beetle damage and saw this little guy making tracks in this tree. the tree is a ponderosa pine, which was attacked by beetles this past summer and is now dead/dying. The birds are making a good living here. May not be a traditional track, but I use the presence of their forage to indicate beetle attack so I thought I would at least share it. Not sure what the other bird on the tree is.
7)Elk - Not too many elk in this area, saw some from the road on the way in, but these were way up in the deeper snow. Browse was actually pretty good.
8)Weasel - ermine, not too uncommon, small feet, track together, long body and obvious stride, not like anything else really. I could be wrong here, but I could not think of anything else. More bobcat tracks in picture.
9)Squirrel - running from tree too tree, and digging up caches of torn down pine cones. I needed a gimme.
10?)Unknown - Possibly a running attack on a small mammal from a bobcat, or a lynx. I took some pics, but was unable to make a final determination. Appears to be rear legs landing hard and compressing the snow crust which filled in the tracks. the stride was almost 6 feet making me thing it was running or jumping. hard to say for sure.
11)Bear - They are sleeping now, so this is the best I can do. A black bear scratched this tree. (I guess it could be a grizz, but the claws are close together and they tend to rip trees apart or rub on them rather than scratch them)
12)Wolf - Made the day, for tracks sightings anyway. This fellow was walking down the road I took out, looking for an easy meal. that is a size 11 whites pack boot next to it. With the whitetail population in the area, he is probably well fed. I did not check, but usually if I see tracks on the road, I find another set or two running parallel 60-100 yards off in the timber on either side.
Anyhow, that is what I came up with. It was a GREAT day in the woods. Had a nice warming fire and some tea and oatmeal at lunch, listened to the trees crackling and popping in the 0-10degF daytime temps. Hope you have enjoyed this as much as I did. Thanks for the challenge.
