I decided to go down to the Lake Champlain waterfront in downtown Burlington to look for tracks because I was already going into town today and thought it would be interesting to see what tracks I could pick up after it snowed over the weekend. Unfortunately, snowfall continuing into the night covered up any tracks that could’ve been created last night, so the animals I was tracking had all been here in the morning.
The area I was tracking animals was right next to the ECHO center, in park where people frequently walk their dogs, which made it harder to find tracks that I could be certain weren’t dogs. I stumbled upon the tracks of what I was certain to be a snowshoe hare due to the off-balanced landing print its hind feet left behind. This was a good sign that there were other animals that frequent the park other than dogs and their walkers.
After success with identifying the snowshoe hare, I was excited to move onto identifying other tracks in the area. After a while, I found the tracks of an animal I determined couldn’t be a dog because of the straightness of the animal’s toes and nails, as domesticated animals have much more relaxed muscles in their feet which cause them to spread out. I took out my tracks and scat guide and determined the animal to be a red fox.
This assignment honestly showed me how fun it could be to just go out and identify animal tracks. It’s a lot of fun to be outside and understand how the other creatures are interacting with the environment.