An instructional video on wildlife tracking where I spend some time considering a trail in the snow, asking questions and gathering an impressions on the makers species, activities and mood. I point out where to find the clearest tracks, what to look for in unclear tracks and more.
Tracks and Scat. Up to my elbows in it and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
A few friends, Deneen and I had a great day out in the woods and by the water recently. It was cold, clear and the snow was pretty good for tracking, revealing some obvious stories and some quite challenging mysteries to us.
I’ll start with the more obvious stories. In several spots we saw Ruffed Grouse tracks,
Black-capped Chickadee,
big Eastern Coyote tracks,
and a lot of otter tracks and sign (tracks above, slide below with their proud discoverer). More on the otters later.
These Indian Pipe Skeletons (Monotropa uniflora or similar) when shook, dropped this very fine material (magnified below). We never did figure out if the longer fibers are the seed or the larger black object is. Only a few of those fell out and many of the fibers creating a fine dust in the hand.
By the water we admired the ice and open water on the northern edge, warmed by the southern sun. Sitting in the sun ourselves we snacked on the wild cranberries freed from the snow by this amazing micro-climate. They had a very very strong flavor that puckered my mouth. Great thing to find in a frozen place.
Back to the otters sign. It was in abundance, tracks and scat in many places, particularly where there was open water, even just a little along the edge like the photo above.
The image above shows a nice example of the roundness of the toe pads.
The most intriguing mystery came in the contents of the otter scats. One of which, pictured above contained these globs pictured magnified below (sorry no scale). They were frozen so we could not determine their consistency. Otter do secrete a yellowish white mucus-like substance for scent marking which could be what this is. I have seen that before and it was not so chunky as this.
Even weirder, though with some help we were able to determine what the are, were these hard, somewhat hemispherical objects found in a different Otter scat. There were several of them, some different sizes and we spent quite a while trying to figure it out, trading hypotheses from fish eyes, to a strangely adapted fish scale or seed shell and many other ideas. It was fun and challenging and one of my favorite aspects of tracking.
Above and below are both sides of same object.
Turns out they are gastroliths, a deposit of calcium carbonate in crayfish that they build up in order to get a jump on growing a new exoskeleton once they molt. Another tracker Connor O’Malley let us in on this secret. Apparently they are common in Otter scat though I had not noticed them before.
And a final tracking blessing, Grey Fox tracks; a rare treat. Some of the group had never seen Grey Fox tracks before. They only showed up in one spot where the snow was just right. Round, symmetrical, small metatarsal and metacarpal pads (heel) and no nails showing, it ghosted in and out like they so often do. I have had the great honor of spending a little time with a juvenile and it was friendly and gentle, always moving, darting about curiously.
Our day was filled with other experiences too. We listened to our echos on the lake, slid on the ice, rested in the sun, watched birds and talked to ravens. On the way home we stopped to eat in the city, had to walk through a mall. It was intense, nothing subtle, no delicate mystery, just bustle and noise. At the restaurant the food was great the the company better.
Still, the best part of the day was standing huddled over a pile of shit wondering what was inside.
Snake Sheds Turned into Mouse’s House
Deneen found this in the wood pile. A mouse, or possible vole’s nest made almost entirely of snake skins. I have never seen this before. Certain birds will use a snake skin or two in their nests and I would not have been surprised to see a few snake skins in a mouse nest, this many is something else. The wood piles here do tend to be full of snake sheds in the summer so even though the wood pile was surrounded by a field full of other materials, these must have been the most convenient.
Please let me know if you have ever seen this before. Pictures are welcome.
A Mountain Out of a Molehill
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.
Checking the Camera Trap
Deneen and I put our camera trap out trying for River Otter over a month ago. I went out to check it today. Here is a video I shot while out, it contains the results from the trap.
More on Teeth and Feathers
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.
Check out this paper to learn why:
http://www.mun.ca/biology/scarr/4505_Felid_Teeth.htm
Thanks for asking, Andy.
dg
My reply
Thanks for the paper and the complements.
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.
Turkey Tale
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.
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.
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.
The second scene (below) still had some snow in it. However the only tracks were melted out deer.
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.
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.
There were no tracks on the snow, there was however this scat about half an inch in diameter full of fur.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Tufted Titmouse Treasure
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.
Tracking the Past
Some background before I tell the story.
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.
Painted Turtles Laying Eggs
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.
