At first glance, the winter landscape appeared stark and void of life. Neither bird nor beast seemed to have been willing to venture out into the cold. I should mention here, right from the start, that I do not like winter. I don’t like the snow and I don’t like the cold. So I found myself questioning what the heck I was doing heading out with a friend on the coldest of winters to take a photo of “birders” taking part in the annual Christmas Bird Count.
Stepping out of the warm vehicle, we surveyed the lay of the land. A great expanse of desolate white lay before us in all directions.
“Which way should we go?” I asked.
“I wonder what there might be to see over this way,” she said as she took a deep breath of the cool crisp air.
“What could there possibly be to see – other than white?” I muttered under my breath.
She led. I followed.
It wasn’t long before we spotted a set of small footprints in the snow.
“Let’s follow them and see where they lead,” she said all excited. She led. I followed.
The tracks led across an open area of drifted snow just to the left of the tree line – not exactly in a straight line, but obviously with some sort of mission in mind. A little further on, they suddenly disappeared – just like that. There were no other intersecting prints, no hole burrowed into the snow, no nothing.
Kneeling down to take a closer look, my friend pointed out where the snow appeared to have been ever so slightly brushed away about 10 inches on either side of the tiny tracks – right at about the point where the tiny prints had come to such an abrupt end.
“Animal tracks are like fingerprints,” she said as she knelt there.
I have to admit, I was becoming somewhat curious as to what had happened to our little friend who had left its trail in the snow.
“When tracking,” she said, “you need to try and think like an animal and put yourself into their paws, so to speak.”
She then went on to explain that “smaller animals, which are also often food sources for other larger animals, usually stay close to cover for safety reasons.” And, that “a creature such as a small field mouse, which is probably what made these tracks, would normally have stayed nearer to protective cover in case something else like, say, a coyote or a hungry hawk or an owl, happened to be out hunting in the area.”
“See here – the brushing of the snow on both sides of the mouse’s tracks – you know what that indicates? A hawk or owl has swooped down to pick off a tasty little morsel for lunch. Everything feeds off everything else in the wild,” she said with a malicious grin.
My friend says she often takes along a notebook and a pencil so she can make sketches of imprints and jot down notes so that she can go on the Internet to identify unfamiliar prints later on.
Later that evening, I found myself searching the Internet for information about animal tracks and the art of tracking. I discovered plenty of information on the subject. I also discovered a number of really good field guides available that one can carry when venturing out into the wild to help identify animal tracks. Tom Brown’s Field Guide to Nature Observation and Tracking, the National Audubon Society’s Pocket Guide: Familiar Animal Tracks of North America and the Peterson Field Guide to Animal Tracks are all well worth looking at, if not keeping in your pocket.
It would seem the art of tracking is part science, part detective work and, I have to admit, a pretty good reason to spend time in the great outdoors.
