Tracks in the Snow

By Dave Erler, Senior Naturalist

Skunk tracks in the snow.

A week ago I was out in the woods behind my house. To get to the woods I have to cross a stream. The stream is fairly small, too small to paddle a canoe on, but just a little too wide to jump across. To surmount this obstacle I always cross in the same place where I constructed a couple of crude bridges about three decades ago. As got to the first bridge I noticed that a thin coat of ice had finally formed and was coated with a dusting of snow from the night before.

Looking down from the bridge I could see two sets of small tracks. I stopped and looked a little closer and it was clear from the patterns and size of tracks they were from two different animals. One set had smaller footprints paired side by side with about a 12 to 13 inch gap between sets of tracks. The other prints were also paired, but a bit rounder in shape; more definite comma-shaped claw marks and a longer gap between the sets of prints. From that evidence it was clear a Long-tailed Weasel and a Mink had passed through. Both sets of tracks were heading in the same direction, but knowing these two species don’t socialize I began to wonder. Which one had come through first? Was one following the other? Where were they going and where had they come from? Had I just missed an opportunity to see one of them?

I followed the tracks as best I could along the bank, but the dense growth of alders made it difficult and I gave up the effort after a few dozen yards. But even from following them that short distance it seemed clear they both were on a mission. If someone were to follow my tracks it would be clear I was randomly rambling about. In fact if someone followed long enough they would have been led in a large irregular circle eventually coming back across the bridge and to my doorstep. Once there they would have found me enjoying the warmth of the wood stove. As for the mink and the weasel, they have no such luxury. For them survival depends on using energy efficiently at a time of the year when food is hard to come by and the conditions are brutal. They have no time to wander about aimlessly.

Winter often seems devoid of life with so many of the birds having gone south and so many other animals lying dormant until spring arrives and awakens them. For those creatures that remain active and take on the challenge of winter I am thankful. I am thankful for the tracks they leave in the snow to give me reason to wonder and wander through winter as well.

Winter Tracking

Winter is here and snow is on the ground in many areas. The conditions are great for getting outside to find animal tracks.

Our friends at New Hampshire Public Television and Wildlife Journal have a great video about tracking animals in the snow. Take a look and then get outside!

Wild Walks with a Three-year Old

by Margaret Gillespie

What do you get if you go walking in the winter woods with a three year old girl and a one year old poodle? A wild walk in more ways than one! My wild walks with my niece, Yesi, and poodle, Mica, began in December 2010 and they have become a learning experience for all three of us. I knew from working with the young children in the Science Center’s new Blue Heron School that I wanted to grasp this important time in Yesi’s life to make connections to the natural world. On our first walk, we returned along the same path and I pointed to her little boot track in the snow. “Who walked there?” I asked. Yesi responded, “You!” I make a boot track next to the little one and Yesi laughed as she recognized the small track as her own. Then we looked at Mica’s paw prints with the claws showing. Our tracking career had begun!

Early in January before the major snowstorms, we walked in the forest across from our family farm in Canterbury. Imagine our glee when we found that several deer had been there before us. Yesi delighted in putting two fingers in the paired tracks of the toes and saying “deer track!” We even found two sets of small prints – Yesi decided those were made by baby deer. Next to a pine tree we saw tiny prints of a mouse and followed them to where they disappeared into a hole. Yesi spoke in a whisper (unusual for her) so the mouse wouldn’t wake up. On the way back she had fun making a track and asking, “Whose track? Yours?”

After more than two feet of snow fell, our travels became restricted. Fortunately for us (and the owls), mice still ran on top of the snow. One mouse had scampered down a bank and we laughed as we made tiny snowballs and rolled them down the hill, making snowball tracks!

Yesterday, we explored a little used, but well groomed, snowmobile trail. The night before, animals had taken advantage of the easy walking and left their tracks. Yesi slipped her two fingers into a print and said triumphantly, “Deer tracks!” Needless to say, I was a proud aunt! Further up the trail, hemlocks crowded over the snowmobile trail and a major deer “highway” went off into the woods. We had discovered a deer yard! Yesi and Mica were eager to follow the tracks but we will be back again soon when we have more time.

Winter Wildlife Signs

By Eric D'Aleo
It snowed yesterday!It was the first real snow of the new year with an accumulation greater than a dusting and animal tracks were in abundance when I went outside this morning. Red squirrel tracks were randomly scattered among the trees in the surrounding woodlands while a set of fox tracks seemed to show the fox had a definite destination in mind as it made its way across the field. Songbirds have been coming to the Science Center bird feeders in greater numbers since the weather is turning more harsh but we had a new addition last month that I've never seen at our feeders before, turkeys. These birds have actually been on the property for several months and I've watched them grow from little poults desperately balancing on a tree branch high overhead in June when spooked, to adult-sized birds feeding on the tray feeders just outside the Webster building in early December. I tried to get a picture to capture the moment but the birds were too wary and they slipped away. Keep your eyes open for wildlife signs and sightings near your home over the next few months.