Stories in the Snow
"Look! Look!" A child's mitten-clad hand grabs hold of mine and begins tugging and pointing at the snowy ground.
"Over here!" Another shouts from the other side of the trail.
My group of all ages has just gotten tuned-in to reading the landscape for clues to the world around us and the excitement is palpable. I'm leading a Tracking Class at Cumming Nature Center sponsored by the Naples Library.
Snow is one of the best mediums for discovering the mysterious world of nature. Coming upon an animal's tracks can be just as exciting as seeing the animal itself. Donald Stokes, author of A Guide To Nature In Winter, writes that an animal trail is "both a record of the past and a connection to the present, for back on the trail are sketched the encounters of a living being, while ahead is the present animal continually leaving its life experience one step behind."
Acquiring a few basic skills for identifying prints and patterns is easy and will feed your child's natural curiosity about the world. It's easy to learn the four main tracking patterns by acting the motions and movements out with your child:
Tracking Patterns
If you and your child get down on all fours you will naturally crawl like a walker moves. Walkers move opposite front and back legs at the same time, just like we do. A very straight lined pattern of small dog-like tracks are often a fox, whereas a domestic dog meanders; they aren't worried about conserving energy because they know where their next meal comes from! Animals in this group include deer, fox, coyotes, dog, cats, and horses - although each has their own unique walking style.
Waddler patterns are made by moving one side of the body at a time. Generally, paws are pointed slightly inward. This is a fun one to try and is easier if you pretend to be a lumbering black bear or an unhurried porcupine. Other waddlers include raccoon, skunk, opossum, and beaver.
Bounders make an easily recognizable "two-by-two" pattern in pairs of tracks. The weasel family fits in this group and if you know anyone who owns a pet ferret, watch it move for a perfect demonstration. Some small voles (similar to a mouse without the long tail) use this pattern as well. These patterns in the wild indicate an ermine, short tailed weasel, mink, sometimes the skunk, or even an otter.
The hopping pattern is made by animals with longer back legs that are hoisted over front paws as they hop along. Often, the two front paws are uneven while the back paws are paired. This is a really fun one to try and do but hopping is much more difficult than it looks. Hoppers include red squirrels, grey squirrels, cotton tail rabbits, hares, and many mice.
Paws n' Prints
Even if you can't determine the animal's pattern of walking, often a single print can be enough of a clue. Susan Morse, proprietor of Keeping Track, Inc. in Vermont, taught me about the dog family's oblong shape and inherent "X" in the print. Cat prints are perfectly round and lack the claw mark that a dog makes. White-tailed deer show two half-moon shapes, because, in essence, they are always up on their two front toes.
Signs of Wildlife
Other animal signs to look for include chew and eat marks on twigs, nuts, and acorns, wing feather marks in the snow, bird tracks, mouse and vole tunnel snaking under the top layer of snow, den holes and the patted down bedding areas of deer. Each "sign" offers a special clue about a specific animal. Of course, scat – the scientific term for animal feces – is another great clue as to which animal came by. Rabbit "pellets" are very round and deer "pellets" are usually more oblong and darker, sometimes packed together. Scat can also tell the story about what an animal was eating last if you have the courage to look carefully (but don't touch wild animal feces as it can contain disease).
Anne Meade, of The Animal Teachers, says that "observation skills can never be wasted. Tracking is a way to start really looking at things." Once you learn to see the trails and signs wildlife leave behind, the winter world is suddenly full of stories made by the families of animals out making tracks, just like yours, in the snow.
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