What’s going on out on the land?
Determining Direction of Travel on a Fisher Trail
“Which way them critters goin’?”
To this day it can be tricky to tell the direction of travel through deep snow.
For this exploration in determining the direction of travel I’ll use a snowed in Fisher trail we encountered during an Earth Tracks Tracking Apprenticeship outing at Bognor Marsh, near Meaford, Ontario as an example. It was a faint trail, mostly snowed in, but the impressions were visible at the right angles, as long as they hadn’t been blown away in the wind.
White-tailed Deer feeding sign at Kinghurst
Recently, at a TCNA “tracker tuesday” call, there was a challenge proposed: on your next tracking outing, practice following the deer or the rabbits and see if you can find 10 plants which they fed on. For me in my area, the deer would be White-tailed Deer and the rabbits would be Eastern Cottontails. While I have been observing the Cottontails loosely at work with my students, for this tracking outing with the Earth Tracks Wildlife Tracking Apprenticeship, we focused on the White-tails.
Trailing Porcupine at Dunby rd
I knew who the trail belonged to pretty much right away due to the oscillating midline that ran through the length of the furrowed trough in the snow and the occasional spotting of urine that was sprinkled intermittently along the run. This was the trail of the North American Porcupine, a common fixture in the forests of Dunby rd.
How To Age A White-tailed Deer by Looking At The Teeth pt. 2 : Older Deer
At the end of April I was attending a Track and Sign Evaluation. On the second day of the two day eval we came across a female White-tailed Deer carcass and were asked the question of how old the dead Deer was when she died. We were given three options to choose from based on what we could see. The three options were: A) 1-3 years, B) 4-7 years, or C) 7 and up.
Well, when I got home I started I realized I had a lot more research to do.
Deeper Questions of Common Sign : Tracking at Kinghurst
This past Saturday was another outing with the Earth Tracks Wildlife Tracking Apprenticeship. We went out to the Kinghurst forest in Grey County, Ontario to see what we could find together. It was a small group of six of us, but that made it a little bit sweeter as we could really dig in to all of the things we were seeing.
Sign of Birds in Algonquin Park
While in Algonquin Park this past week with the Earth Tracks Winter Wildlife Tracking Trip I tried to pay more attention to some of the bird sign throughout our days, though I didn’t always get some good photos, and I missed recording some beautiful songs and calls. I will share however what I did find in the park and what I have been able to learn thus far.
How To Age A White-tailed Deer by Looking At The Teeth, pt. 1 : Younger Deer
A lot has been studied and written about on the topic of White-tailed Deer. But despite reading a ton of it, I still find it trying to find all the various pieces of information and put it all together, unless I write it up myself. Here is my attempt to consolidate and better understand how we can come to know a deer’s age at the time of their death by looking at the teeth which remain.
Tracking Birds At Saugeen First Nations, 2023.06.10
We parked and got out of the vehicles after a long drive and took to the sand right away to find some good tracks. While we did discuss some Red Fox and some Coyote tracks and gait patterns, I was really looking forward to finding some bird tracks. I was eager for the beach but James called me over to show me a track he’d found. It was from a bird! This was a great start to our day together as I came with the intention of tracking birds and we were only about four metres away from the cars. We got down to check it out.
Tracking Walkabout, 2023.05.29
A couple nights ago, right before recording my radio show, a friend called and asked about some hole in the side of his walled in porch/anteroom/whatever thing. He even sent some photos. While we were on the phone, something flew past him and he described it with excitement.. It was like a big bee or something but it was shiny. I knew right off who it was.
The Spring Birds of Dunby Rd
For our first day of the 2023-2024 Earthtracks Wildlife Tracking Apprenticeship we all gathered at Dunby rd to explore the tracks and sign of wildlife along, and adjacent to, the Bruce Trail. While we encountered much more than birds, I wanted to write a bit of a report back on some of the sign of the birds along the trail as I am trying to focus on learning more about bird track and sign this year. This includes feathers, nests, eggs, scat, pellets, dust baths, kill sites, tracks, feeding sign, etc., etc. For this outing it all started with song.
Eastern Tent Caterpillar Egg Masses
We were in the midst of a mock evaluation at Mono Cliffs provincial park, making our way slowly through an old orchard which had been left to rewild, when Tamara called our evaluator Alexis over to ask if she could suggest a question for the evaluation. Only thing I heard from their quick conversation was “this will be a hard one”. They directed our attention to the end of an Apple branch where a small jeweled formation wrapped around a thin twig, like a bangle or elaborate armband. This broad ring or twig-band, about 3 cm long, seemed to be made up of smaller gemlike circles of gold lacquered together. These smaller circles were about .6 mm in diameter and tightly packed together. There could’ve been 200 of the small gold circles wrapped in this small shiny bundle. I made a guess right away that it must be an egg mass, but I didn’t know who made it. It was mysterious to me. I wrote out my answer and shared it with Tamara and waited for the big reveal.
Are There Dangers In Smelling Red Fox Urine?
Recently, while trailing in Algonquin Park with the Earth Tracks Wildlife Tracking Apprenticeship some of us bent down on different occasions to smell Algonquin Wolf, Red Fox, and River Otter scent marks, which were usually small deposits of urine placed in a prominent spot along the animal’s trail. When we got back to the Wildlife Research Station which was our home base for the weekend, we got to talking about safety around sniffing animal urine when trailing.
Personally, I have smelled animal urine literally hundreds of times. Nearly every time I see a urine deposit on an animal trail, aside from Human (Homo sapiens) and other domestic animals, I get down and sniff. But the questions got me reflecting; When tracking or trailing an animal, are there dangers in smelling animal urine?
Examining Coyote Courting Behaviours : Tracking at Bell’s Lake
On Saturday we met up to go tracking with the apprenticeship crew. Marcus and I pulled up I noted the trail along the middle of the road, between the tire tracks, where it looked like some sort of canid had been walking along. The folks who were already there had already noticed this trail and were exploring other trails as well. As everyone arrived we circled up and then decided to follow the trail into the woods and see what else we could figure out.
What began as a wonder, ended as a joyful celebration of the possibility of romance and new life. All from following a couple of Coyotes.
What The Toes Show - A question of deer hooves
For the past four years there has been a bit of a conundrum at the tracking apprenticeship. There has been a theory passed around to be argued and analyzed, challenged and sustained. It has confronted, confused, and confounded many of us who have tried to scry a little more understanding from a couple of seemingly basic teachings, all from the hooves of White-tailed Deer.
Corvid Tracks at Bishop Mac
I ended up driving across town this morning to visit a spot where I’ve found Osprey nests, plenty of White-tailed Deer trails as well as tons of Coyote scat and trails in hopes of trailing some animals. While I did backtrack, and later fore track a deer for a good portion of my morning, the most interesting find were the corvid tracks I found in the parking lot as soon as I stepped out of the car.
A Side Trot On My Driveway
I had stepped outside to take out the recycling when I noticed two canid trails on my driveway. There was one leading towards the back yard, and one heading back out towards the street. I took a closer look to try and see which species it may have been, as I have noted different species in the area on other occasions and wouldn’t have been too surprised to have seen any of them going into my backyard in search of play or prey.
Tracking journal for 2021.11.07
I woke up “early” because of the time change and realized I had some time before any other commitments for the day so I checked to see if anyone wanted to come out with me to go see the morning world. No one did, so like many other mornings, it was time to be spent between myself and the land around me. Perfect.
An unfinished tracking journal, still worth the read.
Tracking the Smith Loop, 2022.09.05
hello,
i'd like to go tracking today. I'm going to head out this afternoon, maybe to smith trail because i just need to wander. want to come? i know it's last minute, so no pressure, but it would be fun to track with you.
carolyn
I was just thinking that I wanted to get out for a little and see what I could find, but I couldn’t decide where to go and I was in the midst of researching. I needed a push and when Carolyn’s email arrived, I was stoked. I was most definitely down to go.
A mystery while tracking in Lake of Bays, 2022.08.13
The skill set of identifying a fresh trail with certainty in the jumbled quilt of the Summer forest floor is definitely an art and science with which I have little purchase… but a skill set that I do feel a growing confidence about is bone identification, and while making our way up the hill in the leaf little there was a small mandible laying fairly exposed with the lingual surface (the side which would be closest to the tongue in the living animal) facing the canopy.
Some scat from Point Grondine
During one of our daily drifts down the Mahzenazing River where we would occasionally have to paddle a little to be sure we didn’t hit an island and wreck out friends canoe, we decided we should stop on one of the islands so we could have lunch and investigate some of the plants a little better. While out of the canoe getting a better look at some Harebell flowers I noticed some scat atop a bed of Star-tipped Reindeer Lichen and White Pine needles