This past Sunday, February 20th, I visited Centennial Woods in search of some wildlife signs. As I was driving to the Centennial Woods parking lot, I had imagined that the search for any discernable tracks would take me hours. There was little snow left on the ground and any mud that there was, was too sticky to leave behind solid track marks.
To my surprise, I found signs of wildlife almost immediately. As I was just entering the trail, I saw these teeny tiny little foot prints scattered to my left; each footprint was only about an inch and a half long. Because of the small size of the tracks, my immediate instinct was that they came from a squirrel or another small rodent, perhaps a mouse. However, after taking a closer look, I realized it couldn’t be any of the aforementioned animals; these tracks were not from a bounder. The tracks I had found were much closer to a waddle or a lope.
My next hypothesis for the tracks was a racoon. In addition to representing a lope / waddling gait, the prints also had claws, both of which were consistent with a racoon. I felt quite confident with my hypothesis, but I wanted to be sure. I pulled out my tracking guide and compared the tracks I had found in Centennial to the racoon tracks in my guide. Not a match. The tracks I found had a much starker negative space and were much smaller than racoon tracks. Back to square one. I relisted the types of animals I knew in Vermont with a waddle or lope. Then, I made my next, and last, hypothesis. I believe the tracks came from a skunk, since I have a pretty good feeling they didn’t come from a bear.
I was quite impressed with myself during this experience. While my first guesses did not end up being even remotely close to my final assumption, looking back, I feel as though I did a pretty good job identifying the patterns of the tracks and recalling what we’ve learned so far about common Vermont wildlife.
I would really like to start tracking more often, just in everyday life. I feel like before this semester, I would have thought that animal tracking is an intense procedure which requires hours of dedication and searching, but tracks can be anywhere. I may be able to recognize tracks within a matter of minutes on my way to class or dinner.