Snow - an opportunity?

[Cyclingrelf]

Several different animals might use the sett if the badgers have gone. Try to find prints, take photos and put them up here - love it

It could be that the hole there is inactive, i couldnt make out any clear tracks going in or out. There should be plenty of tell-tale signs about to indicate fox or badger. Look for feathers with blood on them etc for fox, discarded broken up foliage for badger.

Thanks! I'll go have another look today. Hooray for the w/e

 

[Pablo]

hiya,

Tracking is often called "the first science" which doesnt quite sit right with me (more likely behavioural studies!?) but its my favourite part of being out in the sticks, aside from actually seeing the animals.

The guy who first came up with that is a white African tracker. We were tracking (persitence hunting) before we invented any kind of hunting tools or weapons so I guess if you consider tracking similar to forensic science (the study of evidence to see what's happened in a particular environment) I guess the 'first science' is pretty close.

But who cares!! It's fun!

Badger's don't hibernate, but they do slow their metabolism down quite a bit so they don't have to go out every day. Many species use badger setts; even when the badger is still resident. They will use other areas of the sett complex.

You'll be surprised how many foxes there are. They will use the same trails and runs, but it's more likely that every set of fox tracks you find will be a different animal. One thing I've certainly learned from this years snow is just how many animals there are out there.

The tracks in your pics look like fox to me although it's difficult to tell.

Here's some pics from today:

Grey Squirrel trying to break through ice to get water

Pheasant running through the woods

Fox tracks aged from 24 hour to 1 hour

Ah! There he is!

 

[Cyclingrelf]

Hi Pablo - well caught with that fox! You must've been quieter crunching through the snow than I manage to be.
I went back out to that sett today, but there were no new footprints. Either empty or the badgers are lying low atm.
I did follow some other tracks, though. One fox made me smile - I followed fox tracks on Thursday and today Monsieur Renard had obviously followed my tracks. There was a neat little print or two in all my old footprints across 2.5 fields! Even when I had walked in a little loop, the fox followed. Guess he was showing me up! There I was, tracking the fox who was tracking me tracking him

I also saw an interesting wing print - you can see the feathers, but where are the feet in the middle of them? Incidentally, the track bottom right is where a sheep ambled by.

I was keeping an eye out for deer prints (we had some damage to our pine trees that looked very like deer, even though we've never seen any around here). I wondered about these:

But they could easily be rabbit paws, as in the left hand pair of prints here:

What do you all think?

I did get a nice little rabbit front paw, placed on a raised bit of snow adjacent to a Cornish hedge (stone wall with plants and bushes growing on it, for the uninitiated)

And that was about it for today! Tracks were everywhere - we could do with some more snow to hide them again, as it's starting to look like the sand on a busy beach out there at the moment. We've got an awful lot of little bunnies.

 

[Pablo]

I also saw an interesting wing print - you can see the feathers, but where are the feet in the middle of them? Incidentally, the track bottom right is where a sheep ambled by.

Snap!

I reckon it's a rook or a crow.(you have some rook or crow tracks at the top of your picture. They fly low without landing and then land somewhere else. Perhaps that's why there's no landing marks from the feet.

The rest of your pics are more than likely rabbit.

Great fox story. They will follow anything with an unusual scent.

 

[Cyclingrelf]

I reckon it's a rook or a crow.(you have some rook or crow tracks at the top of your picture. They fly low without landing and then land somewhere else. Perhaps that's why there's no landing marks from the feet.

I didn't know that about flying low! I was wondering if maybe the sheep had scared it and it had taken off suddenly and unexpectedly and hence took a moment to clear the ground.
Mine is most likely to be a Jackdaw, as they loiter around the sheep troughs at feeding time. Presumably they have similar behaviour to the rest of the crow family? If not, then rook is the second most likely.

 

[Pablo]

I didn't know that about flying low! I was wondering if maybe the sheep had scared it and it had taken off suddenly and unexpectedly and hence took a moment to clear the ground.
Mine is most likely to be a Jackdaw, as they loiter around the sheep troughs at feeding time. Presumably they have similar behaviour to the rest of the crow family? If not, then rook is the second most likely.

Right. It would be interesting to take some measurements (wing-span etc) for future reference. We'd get an idea of crow, rook , jackdaw and magpie. Were there any feet marks behind the wing marks out of picture then?

 

[hammock monkey]

I did follow some other tracks, though. One fox made me smile - I followed fox tracks on Thursday and today Monsieur Renard had obviously followed my tracks. There was a neat little print or two in all my old footprints across 2.5 fields! Even when I had walked in a little loop, the fox followed. Guess he was showing me up! There I was, tracking the fox who was tracking me tracking him

thats wonderful! well spotted, most would have missed that

....maybe you should get a little tiny dolls shoe and put a mini boot-print inside the fox print there? That oughta do it!



Thats a beautiful looking fox you found there Pablo, excellent stuff!!

 

[hammock monkey]

by the way, you may find this useful:

http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/forums/mammal-forums/29095-tracks-and-signs-images-needed.html

its a link to a sticky thread with lots of tracks and signs.

 

[Cyclingrelf]

Hi Pablo, I'm afraid it snowed again overnight, so the wing prints were covered and I couldn't measure them.
Thanks for the link Hammock monkey - I've bookmarked it

 

[superc0ntra]

We've had a month of snow now in the south of Sweden. Just above an inch and a degree or so below freezing. I've spent an hour a day tracking everything from people to dogs to deer to rabbits and have improved my skills considerably