Cascadia Wildlife Blog
News from the Wolverine Tracking Project and more
|
Hello Cascadia Wild Winter Volunteers, Lots of Camera and Tracking Trips this week! Volunteers visited McCubbins #1 and #2, Government Camp West, Yellowjacket West, Glade, Clear Lake, and ODFW Lands cameras, and Snow Bunny and Little John on tracking trips. All of these sightings have us considering the diverse ways wildlife stay happy and healthy at this time of year when food can be harder to come by. Tracking Trips A beautiful day at Snow Bunny! 
The tracks below display a typical canine side trot (the gait that your dog commonly does when it is pulling on the leash). This trail pattern, along with the oval shape of the tracks, tell us it is definitely a canine. The crew identified the tracks below as being from a coyote, but these can sometimes be difficult to confidently identify. Is at a coyote? Or perhaps a fox? Maybe a domestic dog? There is a lot of overlap in the size of the tracks themselves. However, fox are smaller animals than coyotes and will therefore have a smaller stride. Fox also have furry feet, so it is rare to find a clear track. Also, the track itself is wider, so if negative space is definable, coyote tracks will display and X, while fox will typically display a negative space closer to an H. 
Two groups visited Little John this week, and both found signs of weasels. The narrow, focused trail shown below is indicative of a weasel in a hurry! As mentioned in a previous email, weasel tracks can often be identified by the meandering, curious, erratic paths they create as they investigate their surroundings. Weasels typically hunt under the snow, seeking out mice and other small rodents. It is possible that it is the females that are hunting underground, while males stay above ground. This could be attributed to their size difference, as it would be easier for the smaller females to fit into the narrow burrows beneath the snow.
Wildlife Camera Findings This group of 3 coyotes was lured in to our ODFW Lands camera, but wasted no time in organizing themselves to search out some real prey for themselves. Although we are used to seeing coyotes in almost every habitat we can think of, the open grasslands are where they originally thrived, sustaining themselves on the small rodents found in abundance in that landscape. They've come a long way in the past few hundred years, diversifying their habitat, diet, and social structures, but seeing this small group working their way through the grass is a happy sight to see, and reminiscent of these coyotes' origins.   It's hard not to assume this jolly looking deer was enjoying the (relatively) warm weather!  Don't be fooled by the sunny, grassy backdrop of these photos though, these visitors are still pushing through the cold! This solitary elk only appeared once on camera, amongst night after night of deer.  This deer passing by McCubbins #2 was not enjoying the luxury of warmer weather like above, but it is still highly capable of thriving in the cold. Deer can capitalize on many food sources still readily available in winter, even including lichen and fungi  This Government Camp West bobcat might have been lured in by the scent of an easy meal. Unlike the lynx, bobcats' smaller feet cause them to sink into deep snow, making hunting more of a challenge. This individual probably moved on in search of one of their more typical meals for this time of year, which could include snowshoe hair, mice, voles, and even deer. 
0 Comments
|
