Tracking Challenge 2 Winners!

For our second Tracking Challenge, we asked you to send us your photos of squirrel tracks and sign. We had some excellent submissions!

The Winners
Tracking  Challenge 2: 
Squirreling Around!

Category 1: the Clearest Squirrel Tracks

The winner for the clearest tracks goes to Graham Hulbert for these tracks found near Mt Hood.

It is not often we get to see the toes show up in squirrel tracks!

Squirrels are small, lightweight animals. In order for the details of their feet to be seen, snow conditions have to be almost perfect. The snow has to be soft and fluffy so that each toe will sink in individually, it can't be too deep, and the snow also has to stop falling at some point, since new snow will obscure the details. Here in the Pacific NW, where most of our snow is wet and heavy, and days without precipitation can be few and far between, tracks like these are not common.

Graham is a Tracking Leader with the Wolverine Tracking Project and found the tracks while carrying out a tracking survey near Little John SnoPark. What a great find!

Click Read More below to see the rest of the winners: Most Unusual Squirrel Tracks and Squirrel Sign!

Category 2: The most Unusual Squirrel Tracks

The winner for the most unusual squirrel tracks also comes from Mt Hood. Alexis and Andrew, Camera Crew volunteers with the Wolverine Tracking Project, found these tracks while checking a wildlife camera near Teacup Lake.

Is it a butterfly? A bat? No, it's a squirrel! Unlike the clear tracks in the first picture, these tracks were made in deep snow. Well, deep for a squirrel at any rate.  This squirrel's feet made long drag marks in the snow as it hopped along, leaving a very unusual outline! 

Here are a few other pictures they sent from the same trail. 

Some very unusual shapes, indeed!

There are two species of squirrels that could have left these tracks from Mt Hood, Douglas squirrels and northern flying squirrels. These two are similar sized and have very similar feet. One clue that could help us differentiate between them is the time of day the tracks were made. Douglas squirrels are active during the day, while flying squirrels are nocturnal.

What a beautiful day to be out!

Category 3: The Best squirrel Sign

Squirrels leave many other signs of their presence besides tracks. These other signs can be a lot more useful in areas where tracks do not show up very well, such as your backyard. 

The winner for the best squirrel sign goes to Sophie Dimont, our very own intern with the Wolverine Tracking Project.  She says: I was just staring outside my front room window and saw this...

The ball of leaves in the upper branches of the tree is a squirrel nest. Squirrels are like us in that they need homes to stay warm and dry. They build nests of leaves, small twigs, and other vegetation. These nests can be very difficult to see during the summer when the trees are leafed out, but during the winter, they become much more obvious.

It often happens that once you learn something new, you start seeing it everywhere. We hope this picture will help you discover the squirrel nests that might be hiding outside your windows as well!

Honorable Mention

Here at Cascadia Wild, we were excited last month when we saw snow in the forecast for the greater Portland area, thinking this would be a great opportunity to see some tracks around here. But sometimes you can get too much of a good thing! It snowed, and snowed - and then snowed some more. For this month's tracking challenge, we only received one submission of tracks from the greater Portland area! This picture was sent to us by Susan Hawes, long time volunteer with the Wolverine Tracking Project, who went out at just the right time to see these tracks before they were obscured by more yet falling snow.

All four feet of this squirrel are visible as it hopped along, moving towards the bottom of the picture.

Thank you to all who joined us for our second Tracking Challenge!

Join us for our final tracking challenge this winter: Tracking Carnivores!

Carnivore Challenge