This weekend's edition of tracking adventures took our group Little John. This is our second visit to Little John this year. It was quite a soggy day filled with much rainfall but surprisingly, despite the rain, there were a great deal of visible tracks; plenty of Douglas squirrel, snowshoe hare, grouse and even a weasel!  The group once again documented no shortage of Douglas squirrels, but saw no tracks of Gray squirrels this time, they are quite a rare sight. This is the second time our teams have seen signs of that ground-dwelling bird this season, how exciting. 

Look at that Snowshoe hare bounding! The back toes are quite splayed out! Splayed rear feet help support this Snowshoe hare in deep snow. This is a nice set of tracks and you can really visualize how this hare is moving. I bet all who are going on these tracking outings are becoming quite skilled at spotting Snowshow hare tracks! 

It was great that the group was able to find a wealth of tracks in the snow despite the rainy conditions. There are plenty of other animal signs waiting to be discovered all around us, so even if the weather ever ends up not ideal for tracking a keen eye can still spot animals signs. Keep your eyes open in all conditions and you never know what you can find. A keen observer from our weekend group at Little John found these chews on some branches: 

Continue to keep your eyes open and let us know what you find. We would love to hear from you and see pictures of anything interesting that you happen to find on your journeys into the wild. 

Hello all,
This weekend was great! A group of trackers traveled to to Bennett pass to see what they could find.

Several feet of snow had accumulated in the area with approximately 2 inches of fresh snow that fell from the night before, with additional flurries here and there as the group snowshoed around Bennett Pass for the day. 

​Many snowshoe hare, a few Douglas squirrel, and even bobcat tracks and signs were found. The first bobcat trail that was discovered was backtracked about a hundred feet and an odd disturbance in the snow was found. It was nearly a perfect circle etched into the snow about 4-6 ft diameter. There were no other set of tracks leading to it, no noticeable discoloration, and it was slightly offset to the bobcat trail. Unlike members of the dog family, which frequently chase down their prey, bobcats move slowly and stealthily through areas, pausing and sitting frequently, hoping to see prey before prey sees them. They generally do not cover large distances while hunting. Bobcats have what are called “hunting lays,” spots where they lay with their feet under them, ready to pounce on prey passing by. This disturbance in the snow could have been a possible hunting lay for the bobcat. Another speculation is that sometimes bobcats will roll back and forth on the ground to deposit scent from the sebaceous gland.  Below are some pictures of the site the tracking group happened upon: 

For this weekend's tracking trip a group of 6 people journeyed up Lolo Pass road to the Horse Camp area in search of forest carnivore tracks. 
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It was a very cold day, the hike started at 16 degrees Fahrenheit, but thankfully, very little wind. No snow had fallen the previous 2 days and there were an abundance of tracks that were present. The top 2 inches of snow was very dry, which meant you could see tracks but they were very difficult to make out details of each print. 

The most abundant tracks were squirrel with a peppering of Snowshoe hare tracks as well. 

 

What an eventful trip with much evidence of animal activity in Lolo pass! 

We hope you can join us on one of this season's trips and if you are unable to please check back here at the blog to see what interesting things we find and places that we will travel to next. 

Happy tracking and keep the snow coming!