Squirrels often leave confusing tracks in deep snow. Below is an example of a Grey Squirrel’s tracks that don’t match what is typical for their bounding gate pattern, the snow or other factors causing all four feet to leave only the two “holes” in the snow. I have noticed a particular feature that seems to be a consistent clue to help confirm squirrel tracks from other similarly sized animals also capable of leaving this tracks pattern such as weasels and rabbits.
Some foot morphology is in order before I explain my observations. Above are all four feet of a squirrels track. Notice the arrangement of the toes of the hind feet (upper feet). The middle three toes of each foot group together in a line, while the outer toes seem separate. When the toes are splayed, which often happens in deep substrate, this separation becomes even more exaggerated.
Here is a clear example of splayed hind tracks of a squirrel (in this case the lower tracks in the image). This snow was not very deep so the toes are rather clear and identification is not a problem even though it is not the typical squirrel pattern.
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The images above and below are trickier. However, take a look a the image above and one can see on the outside of each mark the edges show the effect of the outside toe of each foot splaying. I have attempted to mark this with an arrow in the text below. I very often see this effect of the clawed spayed toe and have come to use it as a quick identifier of otherwise less than obvious squirrel tracks.
This is also evident in the example below, though much harder to see. Its more of a widening of the track in that area. Try comparing the more clear tracks above to these to identify which part of the foot leaves what part of the track.
I am interested in feedback from other trackers. Is this consistent and do other animals tracks ever look similar? Please leave your feedback in the comments.
On a very wet trail heading into one of my workplaces (the woods) I noticed one of these fresh mounds of dirt. On the way out about 7 hours later the other mound was there. Now that I had the time to investigate I did.
I dug into the piles and found this little hole a little less than an inch across. Something had pushed that dirt up from underneath. But who, might you ask?
So I did some digging (sorry for the pun) and found out a few things about moles. We have three species in New England, Star-nosed (Condylura cristata), Hairy-tailed (Parascalops breweri) and Eastern (Scalopus aquaticus).
I wanted to know which of these was more likely the culprit here. The size of the hole did not help me much, no tracks to be seen or scat. Not sure any of that would help either. What I did have to go on was habitat. Each of the three mole species has a favored terrain.
Hairy-tailed prefer drier open areas with loose soil. Eastern moles can handle somewhat denser soil and enjoy meadows, your lawn, open woods and similar places. Star-nosed go for low wet places where they can find crustaceans and even small fish and amphibians as well as the worms and inverts the other moles eat.
The path I found the hills on is continuously wet, one can tell by the look of the soil and the mossy ground. It looks like Star-nosed country to me.
I asked my tracking mentors to look over the Turkey Tale post and tell me what they thought. A couple of them commented on that post directly, adding some great information. Another (also named Dan) sent me an email and I asked if I could share it here to show how the process of discussion among Naturalists works.
Great story, man…engaging, inspiring, great role modeling for mentoring, tracking, and follow-up research.
Technically – looks good with the exception of one line that stood out to me – the one about canid vs felid carnassials. It’s incorrect.
I got that info about the teeth from Elbroch. In Mammal Tracks pg 737-8 he says “Bobcats, which have less developed carnassail teeth than canines do, leave much more ragged sign… The appearance is one of chewing through feathers rather than cleanly shearing them.”
Do you think the observation of “more ragged sign” etc is incorrect or could something else account for that appearance. I agree after now looking closely at some pictures of bobcat skulls that the carnassials look pretty well developed. Have you encountered any large bird eaten by a bobcat in the field? How were the feathers dealt with?
I enjoy the back and forth of question and discovery. If anyone has experience with mammalian predation of birds please add your two cents in the comments section.
Below is what I felt was the most pertinent part of the paper Dan mentioned. There is more in this interesting paper on the evolution of felid teeth, see the link above.
If we examine the cheek teeth of a typical cat, whether it be a lion or a domestic tabby, we see that by far the most important feature is the scissorslike arrangement of the upper and lower carnassials, the meat-slicers. This arrangement is enhanced by the fact that the articulation for the mandible or lower jaw, the hinge, is in line with the intersection between the carnassials, just as in a pair of scissors. The other premolar teeth, although by no means unimportant to the animal, are relatively less significant. When we examine the cheek teeth of a saber-tooth such as Homotherium latidens, a species fairly common in Europe around 1.0 Ma ago, we see an even greater specialization in slicing, with the anterior check teeth much reduced in size.
The dogs have carnassials too, but they are only part of a dental armory that is augmented by many more premolars in front of the carnassials and by the crushing molars behind them. The dog is therefore a generalist when it comes to food-processing ability. In the hyenas the specialization is in almost entirely the opposite direction to the cats, with the development of huge, conical, bone-cracking teeth. Spotted hyenas in Africa today are capable of eating the entire carcass of a zebra, bones and all, but even they retain the carnassials to permit them to slice meat and other softer tissues.
Copied from M. Anton and A. Turner (1997). The Big Cats and their fossil relatives. New York: Columbia Univ. Press. I present it here in good faith to add to this discussion and educate my students and followers of this blog. If the university or the authors wish I will gladly remove the quote in favor of a link to the information.
I came across a fantastic tracking scene while at work mentoring kids in Nature connection last week. I would like to lay this whole thing out for you, really “geek out” on it and share what the kids observed. I was lucky enough to be able to share this mystery with two groups, the one I found it with on Thursday and my advanced teen skills group on Friday. The pictures and more in depth analysis took place Friday morning which is what I will share with you here.
Below is an area we walk through often, an access road on the edge of a small field with Red Cedars and Goldenrod overgrown with Mile a Minute Vine. It’s in Newtown, CT. We walk this every friday on the way to our camp. If you look closely you may be able to see some feathers in the trail. There was nothing the Friday prior.
Kill sight area. Access road between cedar meadow and wooded hillside.
In the middle of the road we found these flight and body feathers of a Wild Turkey (below). I did not let on what kind of bird it was. Many in the younger Thursday group said the feathers were from a hawk, probably because of their size. Some of the teenagers were very familiar with turkeys and ID’ed them immediately. I challenged the teen-aged group to work together and then tell me individually the answer to the questions “who, what, where, when, why and how”. Some of these kids have been mentored in Nature connection for many years. All of them, including the newer students, are sharp inquisitive people and I knew I was in for a fun time.
I will share our observations and conclusions and add some research I did later. Put you nerd hats on ’cause we are going deep.
First scene of kill site, primary flight feathers and body feathers of Wild Turkey.
In the end we found three distinct scenes of sign, mostly feathers. The first was on the road on the North end of the field, the next about 15 feet to the Southeast into the field and the third, 15 feet or so Northeast from the second, just on the North edge of the road. This first scene included the above grouping of feathers in a radius of about 5 feet or so (being with the kids I was not able to get the best pictures or documentation). This group contained a number of flight feathers (wing) and body feathers (above). I have not yet determined which part of the body the smaller feathers are from. The two pictures below show details of some of the sign. This was obviously the site of predation, especially clear after finding that most of the feathers were “sheared.” Many of the larger ones in two or more pieces. The differing anatomy of predatory species lead to a difference in how they remove feathers to get at the meat.
Shorn primaries from first scene. Note they are clipped in two places.Body feather from first scene.
The second scene (below) still had some snow in it. However the only tracks were melted out deer.
Second scene.Secondary flights shorn and tail feathers plucked from second scene.
In this grouping where more sheared primaries and secondaries (wing feathers) and some plucked tail feathers (top of above photo). Below you can see some damage from the plucking or an attempt to shear a nearby group of feathers.
Evidence of teeth being used to pluck this tail feather.Flight feathers and one tail feather shorn and plucked from second scene.
Again there were many wing feathers and larger body feathers in this area of about 5 or 6 ft dia. It also included tail feathers which the first scene only had one or two of. Below we found the turkey’s beard. Occasionally females will have a beard, as far as I know adult males always do.
Turkey’s beard at second scene.Scat found in center of second scene.
There were no tracks on the snow, there was however this scat about half an inch in diameter full of fur.
Third scene. Students observing feathers and bones from Wild Turkey.
The third and final scene seemed to be the dinner table. The remaining wing feathers, just a few body feathers, and the larger bones picked clean.
Feathers and bones.Leg bones and pelvis cleaned of meat.
Above is what is left of the upper leg bones attached to the pelvic girdle. The femurs where both broken in the middle. Other broken bones were scattered nearby.
Whats left of a talon.
Little was left of the feet. Above is one of several talons we found at the third scene. (Above)
(Below) Some scaly skin from a “shin” or lower leg. I placed it on the stick for the photo.
Scales from foot of turkey. I put it on the stick to take the photo.
Interpretation:
Who?
The carcass was Wild Turkey. Several of us are very familiar with their feathers and anatomy and I double checked with a feather ID guide. Who was the culprit? We suspect it was a Red Fox. This ID is much more complicated. I will break it down.
Could it have been an arial predator? The sheared feathers indicate a mammalian predator, birds do not have the carnassial teeth required to cut and therefor must pluck. Which mammal? Bobcats have less developed carnassails than canine and would not have left such nicely cut quills. Elbroch reports Red Fox and house cats often both shear and pluck, Red Fox often pluck the tail rather than cut them which is what we observed here.
The scat we found is consistent with Red, Grey Fox and Eastern Coyote. It is close to the small end for Coyote and we do know there is a resident Red Fox. Grey are rare in the area. It is of course possible that the scat was placed later merely to mark the carcass as foxes will do. However it was the only scat in the area besides a green, hairy, mushy one I did not get a picture of, that was even smaller in diameter than the one pictured. If a Coyote had killed and eaten the turkey I would have expected it to poop. After all, everybody poops.
Where?
Where did the turkey come from? Where was it when it was attacked? Where was the fox before the attack? Where did the fox go after?
Not being an arial predator that attacked, the turkey could not have been flying at the time. Could it have been in a tree roosting? Some of the younger kids thought a bobcat could have climbed a tree to get it. The older kids and I felt any turkey smart enough to make it to adulthood would wake up and fly off if something climbed up a tree it was in. So the turkey must have been on the ground. The fox may have been hidden nearby, possibly lying in wait as Wild Turkeys are notoriously hard to sneak up close to.
We found no tracks so could not determine much of the before and after.
When?
When did the attack occur? I asked the kids when turkeys and fox are active. Turkey roost at night, fox tend to lay low during the day. They had noticed that there were no tracks in the snow yet the animal must have stepped there to leave the scat. The snow had been soft enough for a portion of each day over the last week to allow for footprints. So we postulate that the attack took place early in the day when the snow was still hard, less likely later when the snow might be softer from the day’s sun. It couldn’t have been at night ’cause the bird would have been in a tree.
When did the scat arrive? At some point a fox poops at the second scene. It felt to me this would have happened after the food was gone. Red Fox often leave a message to themselves not to bother with an empty food source. Why no scat on the bones at the third scene?
Why?
Why was the turkey killed? Easy, someone was hungry. Why this turkey? It was a male and may have been alone making an easier target. A male is more likely to be alone and it would be extremely difficult for a ground predator to get the jump on a flock (or rafter as it turns out a group of turkeys is called). Maybe the fox knew the routine or where it had roosted the night before and was waiting. There was nothing indicating that the turkey was compromised by injury or disease though there was little left to examine. If it was sick or injured, it would have been an easier target.
What and How?
We had many hypotheses. One way we think it could have gone down is like this: The fox gets lucky and jumps the turkey at scene one. Fox pins turkey and starts chomping feathers. Some pressure forces fox to move East to second scene and again to the third. Either the turkey is not dead and runs or an outside disturbance is involved. The fox eats the turkey down to the bones at the third scene leaving not a scrap.
What outside force? We surmised that possibly the fox’s mate showed up. This time of year fox are paired up either mating or preparing for kits to be born. This may have caused the original fox to move around while dealing with the feathers, not wanting to share in its kill right away. Also, it seems like a lot of meat to be consumed on the spot (it must have been since the bones were left at the third scene), which would also indicate the possible presence of a second animal because foxes will cache what they cannot eat and would have moved any leftovers to a more hidden location. If it were a mated pair, they may have eventually shared in the feast.
Conclusion.
Way too much fun! Theories, guesses, conjecture, critical questioning. One of the students found the second group of feathers and said “wait, why are there more over here?” He was incredulous. Good for him. It was good for all of us.
Deneen and I were out on a snowshoe in the amazing deep snow we have here in southern New England and came upon this little titmouse in a blueberry bush. Titmice usually are shy around us. This one, on contrast, stayed put even though we were pretty close when we noticed it. The titmouse was intent on getting into an enlarged part of the stem of a blueberry plant. It went at the spot with a great physicality bordering on violence, not something I think of when I see a titmouse. We watched it for more than ten minutes, my shutter clicking away (that usually scares off animals when that close). It finally dropped to the ground after tearing apart whatever was attached to the stem, and pecked at something we could not see in the snow, then flew off.
After it left we took a look at what it was so determined to get into. Below you can see the hole it made. We had to look it up in Eiseman and Charney’s Tracks and Sign of Insects. According to them this is the egg casing (called a ootheca) of a Chinese Mantis. We have a few different kinds of mantis in the eastern US. Each has a ootheca different enough to tell the species apart. Mantis eggs overwinter in the ootheca, their parents having died when the weather gets cold. They will emerge and instantly look for food in the spring.
The little bird got a good meal out of the hundreds of mantis eggs inside. It was a hungry creature, calories are hard to come by this time of year and it takes a lot of them to get an animal weighing less than an ounce through a 2 degree night.
Often having a camera with me can disconnect me with the natural world a little. And sometime, like this time, as I took pictures of the bird it slowed me down long enough to become determined to stay and see what the titmouse was doing and why. Doing so gave us a cool mystery to solve when we got home. Thanks Tufted Titmouse.
When I was a kid I had a hard time and learned not to expect much from life. When I was 16 my friend Rob, who was not shy and anxious as I was, took me with him to a wilderness survival class in Massachusetts. We were both into this kind of thing, building forts in the woods, using axes and camping out. Going to this class was a big deal and not something I ever thought could happen. At the class a man stopped in who knew the instructors. He was a wildlife tracking instructor who lead many workshops in the area. Rob, always willing to talk to anyone, told the man our life story, how we were interested in the outdoors and how I had all the good books. The man said he had a book coming out soon and hoped I would buy it. He also gave us a flyer for a upcoming tracking workshop and told us we should come. I wanted to so much. I didn’t even mention it to my parents, believing so strongly that I would never get something I wanted so badly.
A few years later I did get this mans book. It is called “Tracking and the Art of Seeing” by Paul Rezendes. In wildlife tracking circles this book and his programs are much renown.
Now the story proper.
A few days ago my wife Deneen, some friends including Justin P and I were tracking at the Quabbin Reservoir. We found Mink tracks along a little bit of swamp. There were squirrels and voles. A grouse left its tracks across the wood road, and someone had left bird seed in several places. We watched Chickadees and a Red Breasted Nuthatch. There were a few other people that had been out before us. Looked as if they were also looking at the tracks.
We left the main wood road for a little spot of upland White Pine and Hemlock. We found some tracks there. We spent some time discussing them, they were exciting. Looked like Fisher or Otter. There was blood in the trail, but not from the feet we theorized. We following the tracks back to where they came from in order to discover what the blood was from. It came off in frozen droplets, not melting into the snow, sometimes landing many inches from the tracks. Together we created and changed ideas as we found more information. Was the blood from prey it was carrying? Was the Fisher/Otter injured. Was it coming from high on the animal explaining why it was found so far from the tracks. Was it Fisher or Otter. I looked at the toes and talked myself into thinking it was a Fisher even though it slide several times, something Otters are known for and Fisher are not.
After a time we came to the top of a hill looking down into more woods below us. Just then we heard a howl, quite wolflike, and close. We were still for one moment. I felt briefly as if it were an animal then realized it was a person. One of our group had returned to the car early so we thought it was him and called back to the person. It was not our friend but two older men. One of them with a beard asked us if we were trailing the Otter. I replied I had thought it was a Fisher. I knew who the man was, who else would I meet out here on the trail of an Otter. After some conversation he reveled himself as Paul Rezendes.
For years I had told the story of meeting Paul the first time as a missed opportunity and great regret. I hadn’t the guts or belief in myself to take his class. Other people my age had become his apprentices and wrote books or started schools in Nature connection. I went to college for something I was not in love with. I had wasted years not tracking, not doing what I was meant to do. Meeting the man who wrote the book on tracking was a story of grief.
Now I met him again, my mentor from afar, on the other end of a wild animals trail, in the woods, doing what we both love. I am a good tracker. I have taken an apprentice program from one of Paul’s old apprentices. Maybe I will write a book. My story is changed. Grief and regret no more. Accomplishment and connection now. Whatever made me think that I did not deserve to have what I wanted or was doomed in some way was just a story. Paul told us on the trail that the mind creates stories. “Sometimes they are even true,” he said as if the right or wrong of it was not that important. Getting too attached is dangerous, the facts can change, the eyes can be fooled.
A Fisher’s trail could turn out to obviously be an Otter and one may never know unless one allows for growth.
This year at the Maine Primitive Gathering I only took a few pictures. The Gathering has come to be so important to me, a chance to see so many special people and feel part of a community that shares a common interest. My time there this year was abbreviated so I was not able to connect with as many of those special people as I wanted to.
The images here do not begin to do justice to the scope and dynamic nature of the Gathering. I was too busy enjoying myself to take pictures that might express this better. Dozens of instructors taught workshops about archery, bow and arrow making, friction fire of all types, tracking, survival skills, health and healing, and many other primitive and wilderness skills. Many families attended, I saw a lot of little babies on their mothers hips and kids running everywhere. What follows are a few examples of what went on.
Some oldtimers and whippersnappers Mike, Al, Nick, Red and Bob, all experts in one field or another, there to share the knowledge.
One of many workshops.
Hide tanning.
Garlic Hawkers Rich, Gabby and Maple
Some of the boys hanging out around the fire.
A fire workshop on group friction fire. Here they are teaming up on a giant hand drill.
Someone saw me looking around for my daughter and our friends and asked “Looking for your tribe?” and I thought, yeah I am, my tribe within a tribe. In this place I am a member of the the Gathering Tribe, the Fire Clan, the Deneen, Andy, Gabby, Jace, Evan, Dena, Maple Tribe (my “extended” family) and the Long Time Instructor Society.
Pardon my sentimental words. To be part of something meaningful is a great feeling and a tough thing to explain.
Durring WMCC’s BioBlitz Deneen and I were focused on mammals though not so focused that we didn’t stop to notice all the turtle tracks, sign and living turtles that seemed to be everywhere we went. Especially on the golf course whose property is part of the White Memorial Foundation. Above and below is a painted turtle covering up the eggs she just laid.
Turtle tracks were in many of the muddy and sandy places we checked. The image above shows just the claw marks. The claws of the front foot leaves an angled crecent of holes on the left side of each group while the hind foot leaves a row of holes perpendicular to the trail.
Turtle trails in golf course sand pits.
A Painted Turtle hiding from us.
At the end of the day we returned to the turtles nest. I had seen snapping turtle eggs several times before but never these elongated painted turtle eggs. They where buried quite deeper than we had expected and were large compared to the little turtle that laid them. They must have taken up a lot of room in that shell.
Deneen and I went to the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge on the coast of southern Maine. At the estuary we saw this harbor seal swimming around looking for a place to bask. The rivers edge proved to steep for it in the end and we got to observe it for quite some time.
Gulls and Canada Geese had been around all day occasionally calling or flying about. As we relaxed against a bank of sand some gulls and a couple geese all squawked at once which caused me to turn around toward the noise. This was not something I think I would have taken note of in the past. Last fall we took an bird language intensive course with White Pine Programs. Since then I have become a little more aware of what all that bird sound might mean. I am most often left wondering.
This day I had little time to wonder. When I looked back I saw half a dozen gulls and two geese calling and flying toward us all in a group. Above and behind them a bald eagle came out of the trees and flew over us. I did not get pictures of the fleeing birds (the movement they made is called a bird plow) but did get this picture of the eagle.
Bird language is an extension of tracking. One can “track” the presence and movement of animals by the reaction of other, more visible or audible, animals.
The first day of spring brought me great tracking snow. I have been out often over the last few days and have a back log of great tracking to share with you. For now I will share something that happened to me today.
As I was walking up an old road in the woods I startled this Coopers Hawk out of the bush along the road and onto this tree branch. It had in its talons a chipmunk.
Right on the side of the road, just feet from me where the tracks of the capture. If you look carefully you can see Chippy’s tracks going from the middle left toward the rock on upper right as well as the wing and tail impressions of the hawk and some very fresh blood.
Above is some plucked fur on the snow and below the perch that I drove the hawk from as it fed. There is fur and some meat present.
I identified it as a Coopers by the size (too big to be a Sharpy), the slate grey color and rusty banded breast, rounded tail tip and darker cap that can be seen in the picture below.
Every time a go out with no agenda other than curiosity I am rewarded with something amazing. It wasn’t always like that and what I find is not always so dramatic as a hawk with its prey. The time I have spent looking seems to have broadened my idea of what is amazing and taught me where to look. In this case I was in the right place at the right time. Most days, anywhere but the couch turns out to be the right place at the right time.
