I love looking out on the yard in the morning, esp after a fresh snow, to see if "anyone" has come around. Of course anyone means animals!
I thought a thread devoted to snow tracks may help each other identify who is coming and going in the dark of the night.
This picture is actually of my neighbor's front yard, but it is an easy ID: Eastern Cottontail (only rabbit in my area, which makes the ID real easy).
Here you can see where the yard butts up to the woodland edge. The "road" you see down the middle is from the squirrels coming from the woods up to the tree that is just off picture. They then go to the feeders.
You can also see some one off tracks in the back that are likely to be squirrel. But then going from left to right you see a fairly straight line, and I assume that is from a fox (more on that later).
These are a couple of mouse trails. From what I understand, the small prints combined with the tail imprint is an easy way to ID a mouse.
I've watched a vole begin making its runs and tunnels in fresh snow, so I knew that the tracks on the right were from a vole. If I remember correctly, the tracks on the left lead to tracks like the mouse tracks above, so I'm assuming the left are a non-vole mouse.
The tracks in the middle of this picture, going from bottom to top, lead to the straight line of tracks along the woodland edge in an earlier picture. Here you can see the gait or stride.
Finally, here is a closeup of a print from that path. I am in no way an expert, so I don't know for sure what it was. But I *think* it was a red fox. Hopefully there are some folks out there who can say for sure.
Similar tracks, but instead of along the wood's edge, these tracks are near the house. They go from one backyard to mine, then along the side of the house to the street. Because of their location, I'm assuming these are made by a house cat.
The quality of the picture isn't great as these are in a heavily shaded area (NW corner). My apologies
And to end things, I found a "print" of a bird that landed in the snow. I had to enhance the picture to get the details to show through. The tail left lovely detail. I have no idea what kind of bird it was.
Nice print pictures. I have taken pictures of prints in the snow in the past, but they do not show up very well. You really have to get the right snow and the right depth to get a good print.
I am like you. After a snow, you can see who has been out and about during the night. That is really fun.
My favorite (no pictures) was the prints of a rabbit going into a brushpile and many fox tracks going up and over and round and round. Looks like he was frantic after the bunny. The next day, we saw the rabbit tracks coming out.
Really tells a story.
Sometimes in the early spring, I am awed by the number of different animals out in one night. I had to buy a track book (which helped considerably) but the more you look, the easier it is.
Have fun. If I get some new spring prints I will post them.
Nice tracks evie, I get intrigued by track as well, Had tracks a few days ago, i assume it was an Hawk attack. I thought I had taken a picture of it, but guess not. But tonight I got a different kind of activity in my back yard. It left these. Sorry about all the pixels.
This message was edited Mar 6, 2009 9:45 PM
But I actually saw, what made those. Had a black skunk back there digging for seeds.
Not good pictures, but here it is.
Another picture of the skunk.
nice, burn. haven't seen a skunk for quite a while, and didn't realize they came out in the snow.
cpartschick - great story!
It's breeding season for skunks and coons!
I didn't think, they came out, when there was that much snow on the ground, Evie, it surprised me too.
jylgaskin, already that time!!! Had a family here last year, I think they took up resident under my shed. I enjoy watching them at night though. And also had a coon, they all mingle together under the feeders. The skunk was a bit mindful of the raccoon, but the raccoon never did anything to provoke it. My cat was walking the ground beside them.
He bothered a skunk once and got it strait in the face, he learned to never bothered them again.
Skunk won't bother you, if they don't feel threaten. I was sitting on a deck one night and a big one came along and feed about 5 feet from me. There were 3 cats around it, and it just continued to eat, never bothered with them.
I like to look for tracks to when it snows. I found a website once when the girls were here that showed different type tracks. Neat thread!
I had a lot of tracks last week, all from one night. I got out before the squirrels ruined it too much. Some deer and fox, and who knows what else (couldn't identify it all).
Here's a close up of a fox, if you can see it
There was fox prints going through what would be the stream and pond. (looking from pond "upstream". Hopefully you can see the single line of prints
Here are the deer tracks. My first guess for deer are the thin double marks that barely touch the snow. Then confirmed with some of the prints having that hoof mark. Not sure what they were up to, but my *guess* is there were 2.
Cool thread, evie. I enjoy trying to determine who has been traipsing through our yard, and a fresh snowfall always helps. We had new tracks a few weeks before Thanksgiving - looked like a baby t-rex had been running around our yard. Turned out to be a big beautiful wild turkey hen. I still haven't gotten any good picts of her, but her tracks let us know she's around.
And here is a cougar track that was found just up the road from our house last winter. An extra-large kitty.
A Cougar track!!! Wow, that something I'd like to see.
The cougars follow the deer herds in and out of the mountains around here. I've never seen one, but my neighbor saw one run through her backyard in broad daylight with her dogs in hot pursuit.
What nice, crisp tracks! I never see any that distinct; consider yourself lucky! Esp the turkey one; glad you found out what it was.
evie - seen any more fox tracks? So cool that you have foxes in your area. We have lots of coyotes, but I've never seen a fox.
we haven't had any decent amount of fresh snow lately, so now the tracks are all over the backyard and it is difficult to tell whose is whose. Mostly squirrels mucking it up :)
Have seen some fresh rabbit tracks up front, looks like it was trying to find a way from front to back but had no luck because the snow was too high (we had about 26" last week). There was also a line of cat tracks up front.
Fresh snow on Fri night = fresh tracks Sat morning. Here is a shot of some raccoon tracks. They come around every couple of weeks, and play with the doggie door. So far, our big kitty Noche (aka "Defender of the Realm") has fended them off.
And here are some deer tracks. Two does and their fawns have been seen passing through.
I have one picture with two different types of tracks. The small ones (4 together) are squirrel. The larger set is a front and a back paw track from a river otter. I put my glove down for comparison as to size.
river otter - cool!
Yeah, sometimes we even see them. (when the river opens slightly into the lake, they will slide up on the ice and you can spot them) They are really cute.
I tried to get pictures of the slide marks they make in the snow on little hills (they are quite playful) but couldn't find any this year, we haven't had much snow.
yes, I second the "cool" on the river otter tracks. You must live near a river, eh? I once worked in a building overlooking a river, and one winter when the river froze over, a family of five otters went down the river and then back up "threading" their way through holes in the ice. They are so much fun to watch. You are so lucky to have otters in your neighborhood.
Nice Cpart, I've only seen an otter once, it was about to cross the road in from of me, but turned around when it saw me.
I have trails, not much tracks of animals.
I'm pretty sure this is a Moose trail. And some smaller tracks of deer.
This message was edited Feb 9, 2010 11:43 PM
I think these are Moose as well. The road this is taking from, is very well known for Moose. Lots of Moose accident and sighting there.
Anybody know what these are?
And these one?
these were quite small, going up an embankment.
Ha, I jinxed myself, we got plenty of snow last night.
Snowline, yes we live on the lake at the mouth of a river (marsh) and have woods going up the river. Great spot to watch for wildlife and see signs. I love it. Fun to see all the activity that you missed overnight.
Burn, when the snow is deep, like yours it is hard to tell. Your first picture is something running. Deer even will run with all 4 feet together like that (sometimes), or even coyote and bobcat. The second picture looks like running, but with a tail maybe. Depending on the size of the track, length of stride etc, it could be coyote?
The last track looks like side by side tracks. Minks will make a side by side track like that, and are small. (also ferret, otter and other animals of this type. Sometimes squirrels will make that track, depending on their hopping. Unless you can see the footprint it is hard, and even then, it is sometimes hard to figure.
I took this picture in 08, I think this was skunk tracks, small and pigeon toed.
