Crossing Paths with the Red Fox

Summer tracking doesn’t often involve those infinitely unfolding trails of winter in which we see extended (to us) segments of the daily lives of animals. Without snow we’re more likely to encounter evidence that reveals the presence of a creature in a particular spot for a mere instant. But I treasure these discoveries just as much, and I find them to be equally valuable as learning opportunities. Imagine you’re out on a pleasant summer hike, and you come to the muddy patch shown in the photo. It’s busy with the tracks of mountain bikes, dogs, and people’s boots, and you’re tempted to simply step around the mess and continue on. But instead you push yourself to look more closely, and you immediately notice a couple of intriguing prints (located just to the right of center in the photo). As you examine them you see that they are the rear (above) and front (below) tracks of a canine, and they surely don’t look like domestic dog. The lower print, shown in the next photo (it’s located down and to the right of center in the first photo), exhibits plenty of revealing detail. The toes are held tightly together, with the outer and inner ones tucked closely behind the two leading toes. There is a nice canine X made by the ridges between the middle pad, the inner and outer toes, and the two leading toes pressed together. The mud is textured by compressed hair, and a chevron-shaped indentation shows in the middle pad. Claw marks are faint except for that of the left leading toe, which is slender and points straight ahead. This is unmistakably the front print of a red fox, and the smaller print ahead and to its left is a rear. Other than those two tracks the fox left little evidence of its passing, but I was delighted to know that it had traveled the same trail I was following.

The hairy feet of the red fox feet set it apart from any of our other wild canines, and the hair sometimes shows beautifully in the fine silt and mud of summer. Here’s a photo from a muddy spot along an ATV trail in which the hair is really obvious. The front track is at the upper right and the rear is at the lower left. (Between them is the track of a raccoon that was turning to the left.) In addition to the hairiness, you can see the difference in size between front and rear tracks as well as the bar in the middle pad of the front print.

These red fox prints turned up along a forest road in a spot that funneled animal movement across a stretch of perfectly moist mud. In the photo you can see a front print in the upper right corner (there’s a maple seed partly covering two toes) and behind that print a rear track, both heading toward the right. In the lower left quadrant are a front and rear that are going in the opposite direction. What I love about these tracks are the peculiar indentations where the surface layer of mud was actually picked up by protruding parts. Take a look at the front track in the upper right corner. The chevron in the middle pad picked up the surface layer of mud and left a slightly curved indentation. The small horny pads that sit at the tips of the toes and protrude from the hair also picked up some mud and left oblong indentations. And the same thing happened in the two leading toes of the rear print (over to the left of the front print) to produce oval indentations. Around some of these holes there are larger shadowy impressions that show where the rest of the toe touched the mud. The hairless protruding parts of red fox feet don’t always show in tracks, and you may wonder, as I have, whether they serve any purpose.

Purely by coincidence we’ve progressed through stages of muddiness from deep and soft through more resistant but still wet to firm with a moist surface layer. So to finish that sequence here’s a print from mud that was almost unyielding and nearly dry. Again it’s a red fox print, but a very different looking one. (The card at the upper left is a one inch square for size reference.) The direction of travel is toward the right, and the deepest marks were made by the claws punching into the mud. The tips of the horny toe pads (the same structures that picked up bits of mud in the previous photo) show behind each claw mark, and in the area of the middle pad we see the chevron. If the fox had been moving slowly we would have strained to detect any evidence of its passing, but this fox was going fast enough for the claws, the small protruding toe pads, and the hairless chevron of the middle pad to push into the hard mud. And here’s a possible answer to our question from the preceding paragraph. These structures must have helped to give the fox traction. Perhaps without them the hairy feet would slip and the fox’s footing would be compromised.