Now that we’ve had some decent snow, it’s a great opportunity to become an animal detective and learn about our wild neighbors.
Various species of wildlife cross our paths regularly, whether they are opossums in the city or bobcats in the forest. Yet we often don’t know they are around, until the snows of winter provide a perfect canvass on which they leave their marks of activity. By learning to interpret the tracks and signs of animals you can solve mysteries like “Who Dun It?” and “Where’d They Go?”
A good animal detective needs to learn a few tips. The way mammals move can be grouped into four gait patterns: walkers, waddlers, bounders and leapers.
Walkers have relatively long legs like deer, moose, dogs and cats. They swing their feet around and in front of each other, placing the back foot in the print made by the front foot so that they leave a straight line pattern. In contrast, waddlers such as raccoons, bears, and skunks, have short legs and rounder bodies so their right and left feet remain on respective sides, waddling along, leaving a parallel, zigzag pattern. The bounders also have short legs, but skinny bodies so they can pick up both front feet and bound forward with their back feet usually landing in the prints of their front feet, leaving two even parallel lines. Members of the weasel family exhibit this inchworm-like motion. Rabbits, squirrels and other rodents are called leapers because their long back legs sweep around in front of their smaller front paws creating a pattern that looks like they are leaping backward.
Learning these gait characteristics is a good place to start when trying to identify who made a track. Looking for patterns is also a helpful way to avoid getting confused by “snow plops” – the marks left when snow falls from the trees.
Once you have identified the gait pattern, size can help determine which member of the group you might be following. It’s helpful to have a measuring tape and a tracking guide with you. Track Finder by Dorcas Miller is a great pocket-sized companion for these adventures. There are also multiple apps that can be helpful. Measure the stride – the length between tracks, and the straddle – the width of the tracks to indicate the size of the animal. This is the best way to tell a red squirrel from gray squirrel or weasels from mink.
If the snow is fresh and not too deep, prints can be clear enough to exhibit the paw shape, number and pattern of toes and the presence of claw marks. Claw marks on a walker indicate a member of the dog family since the retractable claws of a cat don’t register in the print. Two toes on a walker are the hooves of the deer or moose. Raccoons have long finger-like toes and opossums have a distinctive thumb. Members of the weasel family, as well as raccoons and bears, have five toes in front and back. Most rodents have four toes in front and five in the back.
Deciphering subtle animal signs takes practice, but another important clue to pay attention to is location. You are not likely to see beaver tracks if you are not near a pond or wetland. On the other hand, your observations might help you discover that moose and coyotes pass through cities like Concord, even in some of the more developed neighborhoods.
You can join the animal detective club no matter where you live (or how old you are). Following the tracks of dogs and cats can be as interesting as tracking a fisher. The trail may lead you to a place with more clues, such as fur, droppings, a food cache or a resting spot. Whatever you find, it is a reminder that we are not alone. We share our parks, fields and woodlands with many wild neighbors and it’s a lot of fun to get outside and learn who they are and what they are doing when we’re not looking.
For more information on interpreting animal signs, check out A Guide to Animal Tracking and Behavior by Donald and Lillian Stokes.