Noticing the year: 02/09/08

[urbpan]

Yesterday was perfect weather for tracking: a small amount of snow overnight, just below freezing during the day so that the tracks didn't melt and distort, and overcast so that photos of the snow didn't white out. Maggie is noticing something. What is it?



Cottontail tracks! Immediately behind her right front foot. Of course, tracking for Maggie is more of an olfactory exercise than a visual one. I used to think that wild rabbits were a rarity in Boston, but it turns out that there's a healthy population of them throughout parts of the Emerald Necklace. The zoo has a ton of them, drawn by the ample bamboo and sumac, and lack of mammalian predators.


The characteristic tail drag marks here identify these as rat tracks. Muskrat tracks also have tail drags.


This four-paw pattern shows a tree squirrel. Actually this photo shows the tracks of two different gray squirrels headed in opposite directions.


These are a little more tricky, but the scale helps: that's a nip bottle there. These little tracks probably belong to a white-footed mouse.


The snow was so perfect for tracking, that you could even see that Charlie needed his nails trimmed.

Comments

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

hah, funny... the sky had a light inversion last nite - so at 4-5am ish... i went for walks. found a lot of crisp fresh tracks in the new light dusting of snow.

we have a fox. a very busy fox, single register tracks, very precise and delicate. unlike a cat in most ways.

there were also tracks like this:

   O O   O O   O O
O O   O O   O O

which is to say, front and rear pads close together along each side of travel. will have to look that up. a bit small than a fox would make. i'm going for skunk or something of that size.

i think i also found squirrel, something completely weird, and maybe coyote? something with very big paws in a dog pattern, i think. the paw prints were ginormous and wandered from sidwalk to road to muddy pools to woods. no people tracks near it.

somewhere around here i have a laminate card with common track patterns. will have to find that.

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[(Anonymous)]

I dig your blog so much! Makes me want to come to Boston to see all the places you tell us about.

~Flaneuse

[bellelvsbeast.livejournal.com]

I love the track photos, how cool...:)