Happy February!
This month, instead of going to Oakledge like usual, I decided to explore winter tracking in nearby Centennial Woods! I’ve only been to Centennial a few times, but have heard great things about the tracking and the variety of animal tracks you can find, so I was really excited to check it out and hoped to find something interesting!
Before even arriving at Centennial Woods, I lucked out and saw some tracks in the snow in a clearing next to the sidewalk I was on! Immediately, I identified the track pattern as a hopping pattern, as the prints were all together in a group, following a sort line as they continued on. At first glance, it seemed as if these prints only had two “foot” (for lack of better word) prints, but when I got closer to them I noticed very faint, smaller prints right in front of the larger ones, which reminded me of the tracks of squirrels and rabbits. Despite the tracks not seeming to be fresh/new, my first guess between it being a squirrel or a rabbit was a squirrel, because the smaller tracks were more side by side, which is an attribute of squirrels! I could also clearly reason out it being a smaller rodent because of the size of the tracks, which were much larger than, for example, chipmunk tracks would be. Because of this, I listed them as Cottontail Rabbit tracks on iNaturalist, and when looking at other observations of Cottontail Rabbit tracks that other classmates had posted, I feel pretty good about this guess!
After that first sighting of the possible squirrel tracks, I arrived at Centennial Woods! The first tracks that I encountered were in an area that had all sorts of different tracks overlapping, and lots of boot prints too, which were probably from other classmates observing these same tracks!
The first set of tracks that I started looking at were the ones above. From the image with the ruler for scale, you can see that the hind foot prints were about 9cm long and 2 cm wide, with a straddle of around 12 cm, which lines up pretty well with the tracks being from a Cottontail Rabbit! This also makes sense when we look at the pattern the tracks are in, which is a hopping pattern, with the smaller front paws at a diagonal in front of the larger hind paw prints. I also feel pretty good about these being Cottontail Rabbit tracks because of the area Centennial Woods is in, as it wouldn’t surprise me to see a bunny there!
In this same area with the possible Cottontail Rabbit tracks, I also saw the tracks pictured above. From the image with the ruler for scale, you can see that the hind foot prints were about 3-4 cm long and 2-3 cm wide which lines up pretty well with the tracks being from some sort of squirrel, either a Red Squirrel or a Gray Squirrel! I struggled to pick between the two species of squirrels because the prints weren’t super defined, so it was hard to be very precise with my measurements of the prints in the snow making it hard to determine which measurements the tracks were closer to (the measurements of Red vs Gray Squirrels are pretty close, making it hard to pick between them because I wasn’t 100% sure about my measurements). These tracks being a squirrel also make sense because of both the pattern and the smaller details of the print; the prints were in a hopping pattern, which squirrels move in, and also when looking at the smaller details of some of the more defined prints, I could clearly see individual toe and pad marks in the tracks, which to me rules out this hopping animal being a rabbit of some sort. Because I wasn’t 100% sure whether the tracks were those of a Red or Gray Squirrel, I just listed them as “Squirrels” in iNaturalist, and figured I could change it if anyone else commented their idea of what they could be!
Walking through the woods some more, I ended up finding two more clear signs of animal activity in Centennial. The first were what I identified to be woodpecker holes, or woodpecker excavations (their official term, which I had to look up), in a tree! I was able to recognize these as woodpecker excavations thanks to the lecture slides that Walt showed in class which showed holes in trees that looked exactly like this, and also thanks to my experiences seeing woodpeckers and their habits at home in Maryland, where my Dad and I love to spot woodpeckers out in our backyard! When I spotted these woodpecker excavations, I immediately knew I had to send a picture to my Dad, which I did! 🙂
I came across my final animal sign after running into a few NR 1020 friends and tracking with them, while heading back to the trailhead to go back to campus. On the way, I spotted an animal sign that I hadn’t really encountered before, which was skat! It was in this little divot of snow leading into a space under a log that was buried in snow, which I guessed could maybe be a small den for a small animal like a mouse or chipmunk! However, the skat there was definitely not from a small animal like a mouse or chipmunk, but when I tried to start identifying it, I found it really hard! On one hand, it was really possible it was from something like a dog that was getting a walk through Centennial, but it didn’t really look like it came from a dog either, but I also couldn’t really find anything that matched up perfectly with it in our tracking and skat guide. My only guess for it is maybe its from a raccoon or skunk, based on the size and color, since it matches up with the images online? That is my best guess, but on iNaturalist I listed it as unknown in case anyone else was able to figure it out!
Overall, my tracking experience was super fun in Centennial Woods! It was really fun getting to see all sorts of animal signs, practice my tracking skills, and get to even do it with some friends! It was also super handy that I could take pictures on my phone and write down notes while I went, and then upload everything into iNaturalist once I was back in my dorm room, since by the time we were done I was tired and couldn’t wait to sit down! I definitely think I’ll return to Centennial Woods, especially because we weren’t able to see any tracks of animals like beaver or otter, which Walt mentioned could be there!