Tracks! Mysteries in mud, sand, leaves, earth and much more

Ooo, tracks! What fun. There is nothing more exciting than seeing a mysterious footprint in the earth and trying to discover what made it and what its creator was doing at the time of its creation.

Often times, of course, we do not know all the answers (especially if we are relative beginners, like yours truly, this blog's creator!). Field guides can help only so much. Unless we are lucky enough to see the animal in the act of the creating the marking in question, we often have only a vague idea of what the tracks of a particular creature look like. Here are some basics of tracking, and illustrative footprints. Test yourself by writing down what you think left each track or sign. Signs can include scat, scrapes, burrows, gnawed plants, and much more.

First of all:

http://m.almanac.com/content/animal-tracks-identification-critter-pictures
^some pictures of common animal tracks in sand on the Farmer's Almanac website

www.naturetracking.com
^hundreds of pictures of different animal tracks and sign-- the captions tell you what left it!

http://www.inaturalist.org/projects/north-american-animal-tracking-database
A database where naturalists go to share and identify tracks-- it has thousands of pictures

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List of possible critters you could be tracking (from big tracks to small):

1) Human
2) Black Bear
3) Domestic livestock: Horse, Cow, Mule, Donkey, Sheep, Goat, Pig
5) Domestic dog
6) Coyote
7) White-tailed deer
8) Red fox
9) Gray Fox
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Near the Water:
13) Beaver
14) Muskrat
15) Mink
16) River Otter
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10) Bobcat
14) Raccoon
13) Virginia Opossum
15) Long-tailed Weasel
16) Striped Skunk, Spotted Skunk
17) House Cat
18) Woodchuck
19) Cottontail Rabbit
20) Big birds like the American Crow, Wild Turkey, and Great Blue Heron
21) Snakes
22) Squirrels: Gray Squirrel, Eastern Fox Squirrel, Red Squirrel, Southern Flying Squirrel
23) Moles
24) Small rodents: Mice (Deer Mouse, House Mouse, White-Fronted Mouse, Eastern Harvest Mouse), Voles (Meadow Vole, Woodland Vole, Pine Vole, Common Red-backed Gapper's Vole), Shrews, Rats (Norway Rat, Black Rat, Eastern Wood Rat, Marsh Rice Rat), Southern Bog Lemming
25) Eastern Chipmunk
26) Frogs and toads
27) Small birds
28) Bats (most common is Little Brown Bat)
29) Lizards
30) Salamanders, newts, and efts
31) Insects
32) Bacteria... just kiddin'! Unless you're using a microscope

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More Resources:

http://www.hobbyfarms.com/images/media/pdfs/AnimalTrackfinal.pdf

>Search "animal track id" on Google for some more images

http://www3.ag.purdue.edu/entm/wildlifehotline/pages/TrackID.aspx

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John Muir's guidebook to animal tracks is good, but it costs money. (My goal here is to provide and recommend mostly free resources.)

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1. Who am I?

2. Who am I? (The big track on top of the smaller ones)




3. Who am I?

4. Do you know what animal left this scat and print?

5. Scat (below)

6. Who left this?

7.

8.

9.



10. Who made the big track?

11.

12.

13.

14. TO BE CONTINUED
Scroll down for answer key




























Answer Key:

1. Striped Skunk
2. Gray Fox
3. Dog
4. Horse
5. Gray fox
6. River Otter
7. Raccoon
8. Great Blue Heron
9. Striped Skunk
10. Black Bear
11. Opossum
12. Gray Fox
13. Raccoon