What kind of tracks are these?

[Abbe Osram]

Hi Guys,
I need some help identifying a track I found yesterday while going to my trap line. I didn't have a my camera with me yesterday so I took some shoots of the same track today. The round form is not bigger than a print size of a dog, but it doesn't look to me like a track from a fox? What do you guys think?
It had snowed a little on top of the track and I could not see clearly the form of the single track only the main pattern.

Here are the pictures.

thanks for helping if it is possible at all
cheers
Abbe

 

[C_Claycomb]

Well, without better shots of the prints it is hard to know. Simply playing on a process of elimination will get you somewhere. It looks like they are direct register, back feet fitting into the prints of the front feet. I would say you are down to lynx, fox or wolf. Without some more dimensions, like stride length, and overall print size and proportion :?:

What kind of animals do you think you might have in the area?

 

[arctic hobo]

Is it me or is there only one line of tracks? Implying an animal that stood like a bicycle?? :?:

 

[Abbe Osram]

Well, without better shots of the prints it is hard to know. Simply playing on a process of elimination will get you somewhere. It looks like they are direct register, back feet fitting into the prints of the front feet. I would say you are down to lynx, fox or wolf. Without some more dimensions, like stride length, and overall print size and proportion :?:

What kind of animals do you think you might have in the area?

I will see if I get some better shots for you tomorrow, but what I can do is to measure the distance between the steps. It is indeed on line of the same track, so all pictures I took are from the same animal at different positions.
We have all of them here lynx, fox and wolf. But I doubt that it could be lynx and wolf because the prints are to small, they look more like a small dog but there are no human prints nearby and dogs are usually not alone out here.
I would think that it could be a fox but having seen clear fox tracks they look to broad for a fox. (Or am I mistaken) I thought that a fox steps into his steps and the last one I saw where like a pearl chain not stepped out so broadly.
Thanks for the help, lets see if I get something better tomorrow when I go to check for my traps.

cheers
Abbe

 

[Abbe Osram]

Sorry, I could not check back on the track it started to snow and everything got covered with snow.
cheers
Abbe

 

[Fallow Way]

I stright away thought fox or the like. The rythem of the track immediatly suggest it, the track-tail leading onward to the next pace seems to suggest it was something of that sort bouncing along at its merry own pace

 

[Ed]

Is it me or is there only one line of tracks? Implying an animal that stood like a bicycle??

Thats the typical track pattern of a cat or fox (being the only member of the dog family that directly registers) trotting through snow ;-)

Was the track 'direct register'? It's hard to tell from the photo

Ed

 

[Abbe Osram]

I stright away thought fox or the like. The rythem of the track immediatly suggest it, the track-tail leading onward to the next pace seems to suggest it was something of that sort bouncing along at its merry own pace

Thanks mate, you paint a funny picture to my mind of a happy fox bouncing along.

cheers
Abbe

 

[Viking]

Sounds like a fox maybe it could be a fjellfox (http://www.jagareforbundet.se/viltvetande/kortkortartfakta/fjallravkortom.asp)

 

[Fallow Way]

lol, i was taught to track through reading the "music" of the track, and to see how the animal was moving (rather than stick to the technical aspects constanly), so i`m of that type of tracker that instead of indiividually accounting each sign, you `see` how it moved

 

[arctic hobo]

Thats the typical track pattern of a cat or fox (being the only member of the dog family that directly registers) trotting through snow ;-)

Was the track 'direct register'? It's hard to tell from the photo

Ed

Gotcha. I know nothing about tracking except reindeer :?:

 

[Snufkin]

I'd vote fox too. Looks like direct register and a pretty straight track. Foxes don't seem to meander much.

 

[bothyman]

What do you mean by direct register??

Sorry but I am a bit old fashoined and don't really know all the new words people seem to use these days.

Abbe.
Looking at the tracks it could have been a Fox and it did not seem to be in a hurry, so its probably been watching you for weeks. :yumyum:

MickT

 

[Snufkin]

What do you mean by direct register??

Sorry but I am a bit old fashoined and don't really know all the new words people seem to use these days.

Abbe.
Looking at the tracks it could have been a Fox and it did not seem to be in a hurry, so its probably been watching you for weeks. :yumyum:

MickT

Direct register, the back foot steps in the same spot the front foot has vacated over-printing it.

 

[Chopper]

Ray Mears on a pogo stick :?:

 

[Wildpacker]

Looks similar to these fox tracks...

http://www.hopkins.k12.mn.us/Pages/District/NatCor/Collections/AnimalTracks/source/3.htm

 

[bothyman]

Direct register, the back foot steps in the same spot the front foot has vacated over-printing it.

Cheers Snufkin

So "Direct Register" is another way of saying, they are putting one foot inside the other??.
There seems to be a lots of words for tracking coming up, "Pressure Release" "Action Indicators" and such like words.
I presume People are either reading the same books or going on the same Courses.


MickT :biggthump :wave:

 

[Moine]

Fox could be it. But it'd be a fox with big feet... Sometimes in powdery snow it's hard to tell if it's really a direct register, as the second print shovels snow over the first one and hides it.

So either a big fox, a coyote, a dog or a small wolf... Or even a small lynx (if no claws are showing, it's a lynx).

David