Signs of Rabbits and how to track them???;)
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hey
need help on how to find and track rabbits...
And if anyone can provide pics and advice i will be very grateful??
Cheers;P
I would heartily recommend Animal Tracks & Signs for tracking and working out the signs for almost any land animal I can think of.
Its well worth the money I spent on it, although I got the older version without the forward section by Ray Mears.
I'm no expert but I'm slowly pottering my way through it and its got a vast amount of interesting information within its pages.
I found my copy in the local secondhand bookstore and as my birthday was coming up and my daughter was wanting to know what I wanted I got her to get that.
One of the best presents I've had.
in my experience it's relatively rare to find good clear rabbit tracks, mainly due to the nature of the rabbit's habitat (short cropped grass doesn't show up indivdual tracks too well), however, it's usually pretty easy to find general evidence of the areas where rabbits are living. for example; semi-circular patches of short grazed crops on field margins (the rabbits like to stick within easy pannicking distance of cover so they come out of their runs to the field edge and eat their way outwards until they reach their "terminal distance", this leads to the rabbit working it's way down the field in little semi-circles from one piece of cover to the next, a bit like a pair of dividers along a map). groups of rabbits usually have a "look out" and that "look-out" rabbit usually sits in the same place day in day out, as such he soons begins to develop a quite impressive pile of poo, you can spot these piles of poo from a good distance when you recognise them. rabbits are creatures of habit, coming and going along the same runs day in day out for years, probably endlessly unless something alters in their environment, these runs are incredibly easy to spot once you recognise them. there's a few things to be going on with.
what i'd recommend is going and finding somewhere where you think there might be rabbits and getting down on your hands and knees and looking for poo, if you find any poo then try and get back to that same spot just before dusk and find yourself somewhere to sit and wait for the rabbits to come out and feed. when they do you'll be able to spot the runs really easily (the rabbits moving along them will be the give away!) and make a mental note of where they are, watch the rabbits behaviour, how it moves, where it moves, how it feeds, where it feeds, what interests it, what it ignores etc. once you've got those clues you can start to get a feel for the animal and the area where it's living. it's then just a simple case of spending the time walking the ground and learning how to apply all that knowledge that you've gleaned so far, and then you'll be well on your way to becoming a tracker, simples.
good luck, let us know how you get on
stuart
p.s. all the above is just my opinion, i'm far from being a tracker and i'm sure that someone much better qualified than i am will be along soon to give their advice, but i have shot/snared/netted my fair share of rabbits over the years and i reckon i've picked up a few bits along the way
what i'd recommend is going and finding somewhere where you think there might be rabbits and getting down on your hands and knees and looking for poo, if you find any poo then try and get back to that same spot just before dusk and find yourself somewhere to sit and wait for the rabbits to come out and feed. when they do you'll be able to spot the runs really easily (the rabbits moving along them will be the give away!) and make a mental note of where they are, watch the rabbits behaviour, how it moves, where it moves, how it feeds, where it feeds, what interests it, what it ignores etc. once you've got those clues you can start to get a feel for the animal and the area where it's living. it's then just a simple case of spending the time walking the ground and learning how to apply all that knowledge that you've gleaned so far, and then you'll be well on your way to becoming a tracker, simples.
good luck, let us know how you get on
stuart
p.s. all the above is just my opinion, i'm far from being a tracker and i'm sure that someone much better qualified than i am will be along soon to give their advice, but i have shot/snared/netted my fair share of rabbits over the years and i reckon i've picked up a few bits along the way
Take a look here.
http://www.bushcraftuk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=76769
And also here for other critters.
http://www.bushcraftuk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=75862
http://www.bushcraftuk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=76769
And also here for other critters.
http://www.bushcraftuk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=75862
one of the best ways to track them (and anything else) is to get out at first light after one of those cold very damp nights when the sky is clear overnight, anything that travels during those nights leaves tracks that show on the ground, but only the early worm will see them as they dissapear as the dampness evaporates in the morning. I am not referring to a rainy night but one of those nights when the mist rises from the ground at dusk, it generally starts in the river valleys first then spreads across the countryside blanketing the ground in a heavy cold dampness, on such nights all tracks get burned into the grass and are easliy seen for a short period at first light.
Try in sandy areas like golf course bunkers , quarries, sand dunes, at the entrance of a burrow you should get a good track photo, or on muddy tracks and snow soon. You should get some track images easy enough; getting a picture on vegitason would be very hard.
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