Animal Trackers.

2-20-12 VERMONT: We have been here for a few days. The snow cover is at most five inches, and a quarter of the pasture is snow free. It’s cold overnight, but afternoon daytime temps are in the thirties or low forties. The mild and dry winter continues. We did have a dusting of light snow a couple nights ago.

Val, Maggie and Lucy have been visiting for the weekend, and we all had dinner with Anna for the last two nights, and Erin joined us yesterday at Salubre.

Maggie was walking in the woods yesterday and found some large tracks that turned out to be deer tracks that had melted and refrozen a few times and turned into a blob. While following those, we found tracks in the new snow, heading back and forth to open water spots on streams. We photoed them and some others for ID when we were back in the house.

Some of them are below, and we think we have them pinned down, but if anyone has a better idea, let’s hear it.


The sun behind the cloud gives some refractive color.

Raccoon hind feet in the center and forefoot toward the bottom. The hind feet prints are about three inches long.

Red Squirrel, hind foot, pine needle for scale. The front foot has four toes.

How about this one? Would you believe crow?

Track ID's courtesy of Olaus J. Murie, Animal Tracks-Peterson Field Guides, Houghton-Mifflin.