What’s going on out on the land?
Trailing a Fisher at Old Baldy
We had just crossed over from the thick White Cedar forest into a little more spacious deciduous forest, when, in a very unassuming tone, a friend called us over to check out some tracks. I don’t know if he realized at first how cool the trail he had just found was, but as we stepped off of the path and looked down at the tracks everyone leaned in a little closer, and our voices started to ring with a little more excitement. Our colleague had found a Fisher trail.
Wolf Trees, Stink Horns and Carrion Beetles
As I looked down at the leaf litter, I noticed quick movement and a small flash of orange and my heart began to sing. My hand shot so fast into the gooey death stenched Cedar leaves faster than anyone could see. Before anyone registered what I had done I was cradling a critter in my closed palm and I felt them defecate their lunch of corpse into my palm. Again kids, never do as I do.
Towards A Better Understanding of Scat
Ok, so the title might be a bit provocative, but it is the best I have come up with the truly explain what I am getting at. Recently, while the tracking apprenticeship was staying at the Wildlife Research Station in Algonquin Park, we encountered some scat from a few different mammals. The questions kept coming as to the contents, the diets, and the bodies which formed and shaped the scat. I want to explore some mammalian scat a little bit more with this blog post and try and understand what clues the poop might hold to the different physiologies of a few of the species whose scat we encountered.
White-tailed Deer consuming Water Hemlock
White-tailed Deer consume a lot of different things. It seems everytime I see some Deer browse, it appears to be a new forb, shrub, or tree which I hadn’t seen a Deer browse before. I wanted to look into the foods which Deer browse more generally, but also focus on a new discovery of Deer browse on the aerial parts of Water Hemlock.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Ruffed Grouse Questions from 2022.01.15
Ruffed Grouse were all around us in the forest when we arrived. Many were heard, some were seen, but even more so, their tracks littered the forest floor. There were these sunken oval impressions generally in the shape of a Grouse body pressed into the snow. We put our hands in despite the -20°C temperatures and felt the bottom the impressions. There was a hard icy crust in some of them, but not in others. There was scat in a couple, but not all. All had long chains of tracks emerging from them, but none had discernable tracks leading to them. What was going on?
In Search of Fisher Tracks, Tracking Journal, 2022.01.11
I was out on the ice real close to where I’d fallen through last year, looking for signs of a possible Fiser (Pekania pennanti) that my friend had said she may have seen a couple of hours before. She had told me about the possible Fisher earlier in the day when were were skating on the frozen river closer to my house. As soon as I was done with the skates, I put on my big boots and went upstream in search of this maybe Mustelid.
Tracking Journal 2021.11.27
We had just finished part of our climb up Old Baldy, maybe a quarter of the way to the top, just finished checking out some pretty clear mouse tracks, bounding across our trail when we all sort of slowed and stopped. We knew something was a little different about the tracks, but it took a second to register. There were pretty clear, though not as crisp as some of the others we had seen. Perhaps that may have indicated some sense of age… Perhaps the air was cooler when the animal came through and the snow was a little more powdery? Perhaps the animal had come through during the evening the day before or maybe during night?
Tracking Journal 2021.10.09 pt. 2
After most folks left, the rest of us sat down for a quick lunch. There was 4 of us left. A big group can find a lot, but a small group can go at a different kind of pace, both physically and mentally. It is nice to have had the chance to have the big crew in the morning, and a smaller group for the afternoon.
I can’t quite recall who spotted the next mystery first, but it was a big unknown to me. A strange something I had never seen before or experienced before, and I have walked this trail hundreds of times. This special little treasure was handed to me and my brain clicked to wonder and awe. What the hell was it?
Tracking journal 2021.10.09 pt. 1
Very shortly after we started out from the parking lot, I noticed the pale long form of what I first thought was a drowned Earthworm in a puddle on the gravel. I walked up and immediately recognized the scales as the underside (ventral) of a snake, but which snake? As I bent down to pick the snake out of the water I noticed they were very small. This narrowed it down a little in my mind and then confirmed as soon as I flipped the snake over.
Thus begins a fairly long and detailed account of the first half of our tracking meet up on October 9, 2021.
Tracking Journal for 2021.08.15
I watched in awe and wonder, struck by the beauty of this ordinary everyday animal whom we all have seen, likely ignored and passed by on countless occasions. I took a few photos and just continued to watch in amazement and joy at this wonderful being who only a moment ago was pretty much invisible to me. How long had they been hanging out right beside us? Why weren’t they scared? I still havn’t researched all I’d like to but I will be digging deep into the books this week to learn as much as I can. Sometimes it just takes a short experience to open a whole world of wonder that I end up having to pursue.
Tracking Journal for 17.07.2021, Saugeen Shores
We got into the cars and made our way an hour or so West towards the Saugeen First Nation territory on the shores of Lake Huron. There we explored the sandy beach and discovered an amazing amount of animal sign, from the tiniest larva to the largest birds in the region. It was a great day!
Tracking journal for June 13, 2021. Orangeville Sandpits
The first popsicle sticks were going in and I was coming up from behind everyone. A couple of people mentioned some details about some possible tracks, and others noted that they could see sand. I circled around trying to get a better view myself, but I couldn’t see much at all. Then the sun came out from behind the clouds, and the tracks appeared, with the popsicle sticks placed carefully behind the imprint of the heels. Two things clicked in that moment. I recognized the gait pattern in the popsicle sticks, and once that happened, I started to see the tracks.