Winter Tracking in Snow

One of the cool things about winter in the Northeast is that keeping tabs on our wildlife critters is a fun-learning adventure. During the winter months, snow provides the perfect canvas for exploring and detecting animal behavior and patterns.

The State of Massachusetts’ Division of Fisheries and Wildlife offers a quick guide to tracking. Frequent or popular tracks include wild turkeys and deer. Less typical or trickier tracks to observe are muskrats, beavers, bobcats, or fishers. On winter’s warmer-weather days, animal tracks should still be visible in the melting-snow-turned-mud landscape. An easy get-to-know-your-tracks guide for kids is available from the State of Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection’s Wildlife Division. The State of Maine’s Wildlife Division’s tracking guide reminds us to consider that snow depth and topsoil, like sand for example, will show variability in the animal tracks. Tracks can appear larger or smaller depending on how quickly the animals can traverse the land. What tracks do you see most often? Which tracks are on the top of your “to-find” list?