Yes, it IS snowing...

Watchful

Watchful

Joined
Dec 8, 2004
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...in many places in the Northern Hemisphere.

It's a great opportunity for you to learn your tracking skills. Food is scarce, so animals take more risks in the open. And with snow, they leave a wide variety of tracks.

See some tracks?

How many animals? What direction was he heading?

Figure out the size of him by how big his tracks are. Is he full grown? A little guy?

Was he running? Walking? Leaping? Bounding? Trotting? How far apart are the tracks?

At that, do the tracks get closer together, like he slowed down? Did he stop somewhere? Why? What did he check out? Something interesting on the ground? Something overhead?

Was he hanging by close to brush and cover, or was he way out in the open? How brave was he? That will tell you how hungry he might be: if his tracks are all out by himself, with little cover, he's either very brave or very hungry!

Was he moving from point to point? From one bush to another? Was he meandering around, searching, or did he know where he was going?

Does he walk on four feet, or hop on two feet? Did he climb anything? Was he by himself or in a group, a herd, or a flock?

He wasn't a fish, was he? He better not be, or we need to talk about recognizing tracks.
 
We had some rabbit tracks in our yard. I took the time to show my girls the tracks before they were trampled them for a snowball fight. We tracked the direction of it's path till the brush made it harder and they lost interest. Great idea Watchful.

Alan
 
Earlier this year in November we had subzero temperatures and heavy snow fall and my housemate's dogs got out of the house. I walked around the neighborhood following the two of their tracks.

I never had any tracking experience but was surprised by how much I could tell by the snow. The two of them had been going back and forth running up to other yards with dogs by the fences. You could tell how they would quicken the pace because when they were walking the tracks were definite, paw prints visible, and fairly concentric circles. When they were moving more briskly there were less definite impressions, and the area in the snow where the paw entered was generally at an angle with snow that had been brushed off of the rim of the hole that was created.

The most interesting point was when the tracks changed form. They had been traveling in alternating pattern, about 8" apart, left-right, left-right. Then both tracks became parallel to each other and there was about a 16" gap between them. I couldn't tell what was going on at first, but where the paw prints were, there were also little "graze" marks on the snow and it became apparent that these were tracks of an animal running.

A couple of times they double-backed on their tracks and circled around a car. I saw the yellow in the snow where one had peed on it. Eventually the tracks had separated and they were walking on different sides of the street. Interesting enough the dogs seemed to have known to stay on one side of the street or the other and not in the middle of the road; that or the surface of the road was just too hard to leave tracks.

Anyway, the next day my friend had found them in an animal shelter. Apparently they went into some woman's yard down near where the end of the tracks were so I had done a good job tracking them, but they never did come to my calls.

What was really interesting was the amount of tracks out and the different kinds. Lots of cat tracks and other dog tracks. A lot of the time the only reason I knew which tracks were my friend's dogs was because the snow was fresher; the prints were more definite, whereas the old ones had melted and dried a few times so they were a little more less defined. That made it a little difficult to tell when a track was just old or from fast movement, but I noticed after a while that all the old tracks were smooth in appearance, versus "crisp" or "fluffy" appearance to the snow's surface.
 
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Excellent work, guys!

One thing I should mention about tracks in the snow.

If the track is exposed to sunlight--even if the temps remain below freezing--it's possible for the track to expand in size.

As a result, cat tracks become cougar tracks, and dog tracks become wolf tracks almost overnight. I've had to calm down more than a couple of folks over the years who found "giant monster" tracks in their yards. Nope: just sunlight sublimating the snow.

It's also how a variety of animal and people tracks become "yeti" tracks in the Himalayas. And Bigfoot tracks in the Northwest. But don't tell Maisy: defending us from Bigfoot is still a big part of her job.
 
snow-track-photo-of-adult-male-nov-2008b.jpg
 
I saw some dog tracks in my backyard, likely the new neighbor that lives about 100 yards through the woods. The tracks led to the bird feeder outside my window. (Good thing I can't see the house; that would annoy me) and some rabbit and deer tracks out back where I hunt occasionally. (Cats don't count, they are everywhere)
 
Best part about winter is seeing how the woods are teeming with life. In my local (very small) forest ive seen tracks from roe deer, hare, fox, squirrel and mice. I still havent found badger tracks, but i know they are out there.
 
The worst part is I am tracking my dog around the house. Mops to the rescue
 
Great post Watchful! I always look forward to this time of year for working on my tracking, and your posts always have great info about this subject.
 
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