raccoon – Linda J. Spielman

Leafy Disturbances

Leaves: at this time of year the woody plants are bare of leaves, and last summer’s weather-beaten foliage covers the forest floor in all directions. Is there anything we can learn about the lives of animals from this seemingly mute carpet? The answer is a resounding yes! In the photo below we see a well-used deer trail. The dry, undisturbed leaves on either side contrast with the darker, disturbed texture in the trail. Even when it’s compressed, deciduous leaf litter is harder to walk on than pre-existing trails, so deer often create runs between bedding and feeding areas.

It’s not as easy to detect deer tracks if they’re not on well used trails. The next photo shows an individual deer track, orientated toward the right. The hoof pressed down into the leaf litter and the outer rims left curved depressions on the top layer of leaves. But if you just were hiking along, would this print attract your attention? Probably not. To find individual deer prints it helps to study areas where the animals have spread out from obvious trails into feeding or bedding areas.

Fall is mating season for whitetail deer, and back then the males were spending most of their time trying to attract females. Bucks made scrapes on the ground and left their scent at the site by depositing urine in the scrape. They also left their olfactory signature by rubbing their foreheads and faces on overhanging branches. The signs of these mating rituals often last into spring. In the photo below (taken a few weeks ago) you can see a scrape just below an overhanging branch still bearing a few leaves.

A close-up of the scrape has a weathered look but still shows signs of deliberate disturbance.

Deer aren’t the only animals that clear leaves. Turkeys sweep leaves aside as they search for insects and other edible tidbits beneath the leaf litter. In the photo below debris lies on top of the leaves at the bottom and lower right, showing that the turkey stood facing the upper left as it tossed the leaves backward. By using both of its feet the bird created a roughly triangular cleared patch.

But turkey feeding scrapes aren’t always triangular. In the next photo you see one that’s more irregularly shaped. There can be a lot of variation in the shape of the cleared area and the amount of displaced debris.

Buck scrapes and turkey scrapes can be quite similar, but there are ways to tell them apart. First, deer mate exclusively in the fall, so buck scrapes discovered in the spring will show signs of several months of weathering. Turkeys make feeding scrapes in all seasons, so at this time of year they range from fresh to weathered in appearance. Both of the turkey scrapes shown above are relatively recent, while the buck scrape in the preceding photos had been created about five months earlier.

Another difference between deer and turkey scrapes is their distribution. An individual buck usually makes a limited number of scrapes, almost always associated with overhanging branches, in an area he is patrolling. Turkeys usually feed in groups, and they go wherever the eating is good, so turkey scrapes are likely to be more numerous and scattered more irregularly.

Squirrels also disturb leaves. The next image shows a cleared area at the base of a tree. When I found this I wondered if it was the result of frequent use as a take-off spot by squirrels.

To check, I looked at the bark above the cleared spot (shown in the next photo) and saw that the moss and outer bark had indeed been abraded. I’m attributing this to squirrels, the most common tree climbers, but I can’t entirely eliminate the possibility that it was a raccoon. Other climbing animals are unlikely because they are less likely to climb one tree repeatedly.

Like turkeys, squirrels search for buried nuts and insects, especially in the spring when stored food supplies may have run out. Both red and gray squirrels obtain these items by digging small holes. In the next photo you see a dig made by a squirrel. Debris from the hole can be seen below and to the right, so the squirrel must have been facing the upper left as it dug.

Here’s another image of a squirrel dig, this time in a layer of pine needles. If the buried object was a nut or acorn the hole usually retains a firm impression of the object. In the digs shown in both photos the bottoms of the holes were loose and irregularly shaped, so the food items were probably insects.

Deer also dig at leaf litter in search of nuts and acorns. White oak acorns are consumed by many animals and birds, so they disappear soon after they drop. The higher levels of tannins in red oak acorns make them less palatable, so they mostly lie uneaten on the ground until soaking rains leach the tannins out. But once they’re more digestible red oak acorns are sought out by many animals, including deer. Where red oaks are the predominant oak species, areas of churned up leaves like those in the next photo (taken last December) can be found in late fall and winter. You can see fragments of acorn shells and meats the deer dropped as they chewed.

If there’s a heavy, wet snowpack in late winter that compresses the leaves, deer feeding areas may be hard to recognize by the time spring arrives. But after winters with little snow like the one we just had, the signs are evident. A few weeks ago I went back to the area where the photo above was taken to see what it looked like. In the photograph below you can see that the leaves still lie loosely in piles and windrows. There aren’t any acorn fragments to be seen–if the deer weren’t interested enough to gather them up they would have been eaten by other animals like squirrels, mice, raccoons, crows, foxes, or even fishers. You’re not likely to find fresh evidence of deer foraging for acorns because the fall crop has been mostly consumed.

Areas where the leaves were not churned up by deer (or turkeys) look very different. Fall rains and the little snow we did have were enough to flatten autumn’s leaf fall into a smooth-looking mat like the one pictured below.

Some places cleared of leaves are more mysterious . Is this the work of a deer? Or a turkey? Actually, neither.

When you see the same spot in the more distant shot shown below, you’ll see what moved the leaves: water. The close-up above comes from the area in the lower left quadrant of the distance shot below. During a heavy rain, water flowed down the trail on the right and spilled over the edge into the leaves. As the water rushed downhill it made channels in the leaves and moved them into heaps along the edges.

Leaves have stories to tell, and to understand them we need to get familiar with undisturbed leaf litter. Once we begin to pay attention to leaves, and to places that depart from the unaltered baseline, we’ll have a whole new window into the lives of animals.

When Animals Break the Rules

Bobcats walk in direct register. Deer walk in indirect register. Red foxes have a bar in the middle pad of the front foot but not in the rear foot. Fishers move at a lope or bound. Cats have four toes. These and other statements are the received wisdom of the tracking literature. But are they always true? As we’ll see in the following paragraphs, there are exceptions to even these seeming inviolable maxims.

Let’s start with walking deer. They do indeed place their feet in indirect register most of the time. The photo below shows tracks made by a deer walking in indirect register toward the upper right. At the lower left you see a left rear print partly superimposed on the left front print. Roughly in the center of the photo there’s a right front track with a right rear track partly on top but a little behind. At the upper right the left rear track sits a little behind and slightly to the inside of the left front track. The zig-zag pattern is the signature of the walk, and each set of impressions is made up of the front and rear prints from the same side. It’s the partial superimposition of the two prints that makes it an indirect register walk.

Direct registration occurs when the rear print is perfectly superimposed on the front print. As the next photo (the trail of a white-tail deer walking from right to left) shows, this does occur, especially in younger deer.

As this close-up (from a different trail from the one shown above) shows, direct registration makes it hard to tell if the track was made by two feet or just one. Among all the deer trails you see, there are bound to be a few that show direct registration.

Bobcats are said to walk in direct register, but again this is not an absolute. The bobcat trail in the photo below (direction of travel from left to right) is in very obvious indirect register. The zig-zag pattern indicates the walk (and as a side note, you can see how much narrower it is than the zig-zag of the walking deer). In each set of two prints the hind print falls partially but not perfectly on the front print.

In case you have some doubts, a close-up from a different part of the same trail will convince you that this is indeed a bobcat trail.

Was the bobcat distracted? Or tired? We’ll never know. Later in the same trail the animal switched to an overstep walk, a gait that’s often seen in bobcats, so its overall behavior didn’t throw up any red flags.

The next photo shows a direct register trail made by a bobcat walking toward the upper left. In each impression you see what appears to be a single track, but is actually two tracks, the rear print superimposed on the front print. And here’s another interesting aside: The concave hollows around the tracks are not connected to registration, but were instead made by the thick fur covering and surrounding the bobcat’s feet. They’re known as hair halos.

Staying with felines for the moment let’s look at toes, which are supposed to be four in number (counting those which normally touch down) in both wild felines and domestic cats. In the next photo you see some tracks which are clearly feline, but don’t fit the four-toed paradigm. My friend Ben Altman has two house cats, both of which have feet with more than the standard four toes. This is called polydactyly and it’s caused by genetic mutations. It’s not uncommon in domestic cats but is rare in wild felines.

We’re told that fishers prefer to move at a lope or a bound but this, too, is not always the case. In the next photo you see a fisher trail going from lower left to upper right and a red fox trail moving from bottom to top. The fox is travelling at a lope, a gait similar to the habitual gait of a fisher. But what’s the fisher doing? Definitely not the typical lope or bound. Because the front tracks of the fisher are larger than the hind tracks we can work out what the gait is. At the very lower left in the fisher trail there’s a right rear print, and the sequence of the next eight tracks (up until the pattern changes at the upper right), is: right front, left front, right rear, left rear, right front, left front, right rear, left rear. This extended pattern shows that the fisher was speeding along at a flat-out gallop. Fishers don’t often do this, but they obviously can. Something alarming must have pushed the animal into unusual speed.

One of the absolute statements we often hear has to do with red fox tracks. The going wisdom is that there’s a bar or crescent shaped depression in the middle pad of the front track, but not in the rear track. A ridge of horny skin that protrudes through the hairy covering of the pad is the source of the bar, and it’s supposed to be absent from the middle pad of the hind foot. Here’s what we’re accustomed to observing–notice the bar in the front middle pad (on the left) and the absence of the bar in the rear middle pad (on the right).

But on rare occasions we see red fox tracks with a bar in the middle pad of both the front and rear prints. Here’s one example. The front track is at the lower right and the rear track is at the upper left.

Just so you don’t think this is a one-off, here’s another example. The front print is in the upper right and the rear print, with a reduced but visible bar, is at the lower left. (The carboard square in the upper left is one inch on a side.)

Raccoon trails are a common find, and the next photo shows the way a raccoon pace-walking trail is supposed to look. What we expect to see is sets of two prints, each set a front from one side and a rear from the other side. In the photo the direction of travel is from lower left to upper right, and the hind prints are larger than the front prints. Starting at the lower left, the first set is left front with right rear, the second is right front with left rear, the third is left front with right rear, and the last is right front with left rear.

The raccoon which made the trail in the next photo (direction of travel lower left to upper right) appears to be in serious violation of the rules of tracking. Instead of alternating front and rear tracks there are two sets with left rear and right front, then two sets with left front and right rear, and again two sets with left rear and right front. Can a raccoon even do that?

The answer is, no, a raccoon can’t do that. But two raccoons, one following close behind the other, can do that. It you focus on every other set of two you’ll see a normal raccoon pace-walk trail. So what appeared to be an impossible situation turns out to be a perfectly normal, albeit unusual, event.

We need to learn what’s most common in animal tracks and trails, but we also need to think out of the box when faced with uncommon track and trail patterns. Whether it’s two animals conspiring to create a confusing trail, or one animal with an unusual track or behavior, nature can always throw up something we’ve never seen before. It may take days, weeks, or even months to understand what we saw, but that’s part of the excitement of tracking. It’s why we keep coming back for more.

Squirrel Nests

As the leaves come down it’s easier to see into the forest canopy, and the summer nests of squirrels become more visible. The photo below shows a gray squirrel nest, a leafy structure located on a supporting branch junction. Also known as dreys, gray squirrel nests are usually located in crotches or branch junctions of deciduous trees. To build a nest in a tree, a squirrel constructs a framework of twigs and stuffs it with leaves, then makes an entrance hole and hollows out the inside of the structure. A lining of soft material such as moss or dry grass is added, and a second opening is made to serve as an emergency exit. Dreys differ from bird nests in being roughly spherical, with an enclosed interior space connected to the outside through small openings. Bird nests also lack the leafy appearance of gray squirrel nests.

Red squirrel nests are similar but are likely to incorporate a variety of materials in the outer layers. They are also more likely to be built in conifers. The next photo shows a red squirrel nest located in a larch tree. Twigs and grasses form the lower part of the nest, and fragments of plastic sheeting cover the upper part.

The nest shown above was easy to see in winter when the larch was leafless, but nests located in evergreen conifers are harder to find. The one in the photo below was tucked up against the trunk of a Norway spruce tree.

Here’s another red squirrel nest which was constructed in the crotch of a Scots pine.

There’s not nearly as much information available on flying squirrel nests, no doubt because flying squirrels are nocturnal and not as easily observed as gray and red squirrels. Mark Elbroch, in Mammal Tracks and Sign, Second Edition, reports that flying squirrel dreys are smaller than red or gray squirrel nests and are made of grasses and other fine materials rather than leaves.

In more southern climes dreys may suffice for winter lodging, but in our area squirrels move into more sheltered accommodations when the weather gets cold. Human structures are used where they are available, but hollow trees are the preferred choice for forest-dwelling squirrels. Nests enclosed in protective walls of wood and lined with insulating materials provide warmth, protection from the weather, and security. But is there any way for us to know which tree houses a nest? It’s not always possible, but there may be clues. The tree in the photo below must have had a good nesting space because it had been marked with a few bites. We recognize the bites visually, but the persistent odor of the resident squirrel’s saliva is more important to other squirrels, signaling that the space is occupied.

Red, gray, and flying squirrels all make winter nests in hollow trees. If the opening is quite small it’s probably not occupied by a gray squirrel, but beyond that, the size of the opening doesn’t tell us much about who the occupant is. I’ve found marked openings in trees where gray squirrels are absent and red squirrels are common, and also in areas where the reverse is true, so I believe that both species create bite marks to claim nest sites.

Bite marks can be sparse, like the ones above, or plentiful, like the artistic creation in the next image. I suspect that the double ring of bites was created because the owner felt threatened by the presence of other squirrels.

Nests in hollow trees continue to be useful well into spring as birthing dens. But although well protected from the elements, they have a drawback: there is usually just one entrance. In the next photo you see some nest lining that was removed from a nest and ended up in a pile on the ground. This would only have happened if a predator had raided the nest and, in the process, pulled the nest lining out. It could have been a fisher, or possibly a raccoon. Both are good climbers and fishers are considered to be specialists in squirrel predation. At any rate, nests in hollow trees are not completely safe.

In addition to clues about predation, the photo above shows us what nest lining looks like. To make this material, squirrels harvest bark and process it into finely divided strands that can be stuffed into tree cavities to provide insulation. The bark usually comes from dead branches, but may also be gathered from living stems of plants such as honeysuckle or white cedar.

The next image shows a dead striped maple branch that was stripped for nest lining. The exposed wood and fibrous remnants may bring to mind a buck rub, but buck rubs differ in several ways. Buck rubs are made on living stems that are more or less upright and have no obstructions that would hinder the approach of a large animal. Rubs are usually limited to one continuous section of the stem and occur at heights between 1 1/2 and 4 feet off the ground. Branches stripped by squirrels have random angles from vertical and could be anywhere from ground level (including fallen branches lying on the ground) to much higher. Bark is usually removed from multiple areas, and there may be a tangle of branches that would make it hard for a deer to reach the debarked sections. And finally, the wood surface of a buck rub shows signs of abrasion, while the wood exposed by squirrel stripping is mostly smooth.

Stripped branches do sometimes have telltale squirrel tooth marks like the ones in the photo below.

If you keep track of weather you’ll notice that cold nights are often followed by new bark stripping. I sometimes imagine a shivering squirrel thinking, “Wow, it was cold last night, I’m going to get more insulation for my nest!” Well, maybe it doesn’t happen exactly like that–sorry about the anthropomorphizing. But it’s clear that squirrels respond to cold with increased harvesting of fibrous bark. And it’s okay to imagine a squirrel sleeping in a cozy, insulated nest in a hollow tree on a cold winter night.

What Goes In Comes Out

A big part of understanding animal lives is knowing what they eat. There’s lots of general information available in books and other publications, but to understand the dietary habits of the animals in one’s own landscape requires a few steps beyond that. We can observe animals when they’re hunting or feeding, and we can interpret chews, feeding sites, and feeding leftovers. But for many mammals, especially omnivores and carnivores, scat is the best tool. Scat contains the undigestible parts of everything an animal ingests, and it remains long after the creature has left the scene.

For herbivores, plant fibers make up the bulk of eliminations, so their scat has a grainy texture like the rabbit scat shown below. When herbivores eat foods high in water content their scat may be darker and softer, but the fibrous essence can still be seen.

Raccoons are omnivores, and their latrines often contain scats with a variety of contents. In the next photo you see raccoon scats with grape seeds and skins, apple seeds, ant parts, deer hairs, and the amorphous remains of deer flesh. An important safety note: raccoon scat may contain the eggs of a parasite that can infect humans, so it should never be touched with bare hands. To be on the safe side, it’s best to use sticks or other tools to manipulate scat, no matter whose it is.

The photo below shows river otter scat filled with crayfish shell fragments. In locations where fish are the main prey item, fish scales and bones will be the most common contents. In coastal marshes scats with crab shell fragments may predominate, indicating that crabs make up the bulk of the animals’ diet.

For many omnivores and carnivores scat contents vary with the changing seasons. The bear scat shown below was photographed in early May, and it’s made up of the remains of the newly emerging leaves and shoots the bear had been eating. Bears lose weight during hibernation and for many weeks afterwards because the grasses, sedges, and young shoots they must subsist on are energy-poor foods.

It’s only when higher quality edibles become abundant that bears begin to put on the pounds. The bear that left the scat shown in the next illustration had been feasting on black cherries. The summer diet of fruits and berries is often supplemented with insects, and you may find bear scats containing ant or yellowjacket parts.

Scats like that pictured below, full of fragments of acorns and hickory nuts, begin to show up in late summer. The seasonal abundance of acorns, nuts, and fruits, as well as increasing insect populations, provides a crucial, energy dense diet. At this time bears transition into a period of hyperphagia, and spend most of their waking hours seeking food or eating. The fat stores they put on will carry them through their winter hibernation.

The scat of canids reveals that their diets also follow seasonal cycles. Winter and early spring fare is mostly made up of animal prey and carrion. Signs of feeding on deer carcasses start to show up during the fall hunting season and continue through the winter. The coyote scat in the photo below contains deer hair and leg bone fragments. Foxes also feed on deer carcasses, but they aren’t powerful enough to crack large bones to get at the marrow the way coyotes do. Deer killed by hunters (and the carcasses resulting from the vehicle collisions that seem to spike during hunting season) may be preserved well enough in the cold to last through most of the winter. Carcasses of winter-killed deer also provide scavenging opportunities.

The red fox scat shown below (photographed in mid-March) contains the remains of a small rodent that was swallowed whole. There’s a leg bone in the chunk at the lower left, a molar in the piece at the top, and an incisor in the segment at the lower right. The bones are embedded in twisted masses of short hairs. Positioning its scat on the manhole cover was the fox’s way of signaling its presence to other foxes in the area. Small rodents and other small mammals are a winter mainstay for foxes and coyotes.

Like bears, canines graduate to summer foods as they become available. A sure sign that berries are in season are finds like the coyote scat shown below, filled with raspberry seeds. Note that the segments are tubular and blunt-ended rather than tapered like scats made up of animal remains.

As summer progresses, the menu widens. The red fox scat in the next photo (found in early September) contains acorn shells, apple skins, and fragments of field corn kernels.

Some scats lead to surprising discoveries. The next photo shows some gray fox scat containing the remains of a frog. Hollow leg bones are clearly visible, and when I pulled it apart I saw the still articulated bones of a rear foot. It’s a bit unusual to find frog remains in fox scat, but the really surprising thing is that I found this in early December. The weather had been mild, and apparently some frogs had not yet gone underground for the winter.

Food is central to survival, and scat can provide direct information about what animals eat and when they eat it. The many stories scat has to tell can illuminate not just feeding habits, but also interactions among animals, and interactions with the surrounding landscape. Each story adds to our connection with the animals around us.

Seeing the Forest And the Trees: Lessons from Raccoons

Details versus the big picture–in tracking we need both, but sometimes one can get in the way of the other. We can focus too closely on the small details and miss the overall view, or we can see a larger pattern but miss the crucial fine points. The tracks of the raccoon present challenges on both levels, so they can be helpful for balancing both perspectives.

In the photo below you see two raccoon tracks, a left rear (on the left) and a right front (on the right), oriented toward the top of the frame. Both tracks have the five finger-like toes characteristic of the raccoon. Indentations made by the claws can be seen ahead of each toe, and the undivided middle pads show behind the claws. There are also heel impressions in both front and hind tracks. They’re not as deep as the impressions of the toes and middle pads, but they show up because their texture matches the texture of the other parts of the tracks.

Compare the left rear track shown above to the left rear print in the next photo. In the image below the toes are also finger-like, and they’re held even more tightly together, but the middle pad looks different–it’s shaped like a trapezoid rather than a C. There’s also no heel impression.

The next photo shows a right front print. It’s toes are similar to the toes of the right front in the first photo, but they spread less. And the middle pad is not quite the same; instead of being symmetrical it extends farther back on the outside of the foot. Another difference is the lack of a heel impression.

In general front tracks are smaller than rear tracks and have more spread in the toes. The middle pads of front and rear prints also differ: those of the rear tracks are generally broader with more gently curved front edges than those of the front tracks. Because of these differences it’s usually possible to tell front from rear prints in the raccoon.

It gets trickier when the tracks are incomplete. In the photo below of a right front raccoon track (oriented toward the left) only four toes show, and they’re not very finger-like. The middle pad impression is faint, and you need to look closely to see the curved leading edge. This kind of track could easily be mistaken for that of a different animal.

But we don’t want to miss the forest for the trees. The arrangement of a series of tracks is as important as the details in the individual tracks. The image below shows the typical pattern of a raccoon moving at a pace-walk from right to left: tracks in sets of two, each pair composed of a front from one side roughly next to a rear from the opposite side. This is different from the regular walk commonly seen in deer, house cats, dogs, and wild canines, in which the superimposed front and rear tracks from the same side form a zig-zag pattern. In the raccoon trail shown below the details of track structure that were covered in the preceding paragraphs allow us to distinguish front from rear prints. For instance, in the pair of tracks at the upper right the rear print (larger with a broader middle pad) is above and a little ahead of the front print (smaller with a narrower middle pad). The sequence of tracks, starting from the right, is left front, right rear, right front, left rear, left front, right rear. In each pair the rear print is a little ahead of the front. This position isn’t a constant–the relative placement of the two tracks in a pair can vary, but is usually maintained unless the speed or attitude of the animal changes.

With that pattern established, let’s look at an interesting variation. The photo below shows a similar pace-walk pattern, again proceeding from right to left. Although the track details aren’t as clear the relative sizes suggest that the sequence, starting from the right, is right front, left rear, left front, right rear, right front, left rear, left front, right rear. But what are those extra marks? In each of the left rear prints ( the ones in the first and third pair) there’s a deep gouge behind and some light claw drag marks ahead of the actual track. And the right rear tracks (the ones in the second and fourth pair) seem to be connected by continuous drag marks. Grooves and drag marks like these are not usually seen in raccoon trails and indicate that the animal was injured.

This close-up shows the details better.

By the way, you may have noticed a few gouges in the snow in the first pace-walk photo. These aren’t foot drag marks because they don’t connect with the tracks. The best explanation is that the raccoon was carrying something, probably a prey animal, that hung down and touched the snow at every other couplet of tracks. We see this kind of evidence more often in canines and felines, but raccoons will take small mammals if the opportunity presents itself .

Now that we’ve explored raccoon tracks at both detailed and big-picture levels, here’s a final example. When thaws or seasonal changes create seeps in the winter snowpack, raccoons are quick to explore them for edible items. In the photo below a raccoon made two trips between seeps, leaving muddy drips and beautiful mud tracks on top of the crusted snow. The upper trail goes from left to right and the lower one from right to left. In each trail the pace-walk pattern is clear, with the larger rear prints falling slightly behind the smaller front prints. The track details show nicely: the finger-like toes, the narrower middle pads of the front tracks, and the tighter arrangement of the rear toes.

The forest and the trees–both the big picture and the fine details are necessary in tracking. And it’s even more complicated, because there are more than two levels. There are details within details, and larger views beyond large views. The ability to move among many levels is not only essential for effective tracking. It adds depth and excitement to any tracking experience.

Streamside Discoveries

As the high water levels of late winter and early spring subside, stream and lake margins become interesting tracking locations. Water is a magnet for wildlife, and visiting creatures leave the evidence of their activities along the shoreline. A great blue heron left the collection of tracks shown in the photo below. The feet of herons resemble the feet of songbirds, with one backward-pointing toe and three forward-pointing toes. But unlike most songbirds, the toes of herons don’t all meet at one point. There’s a left print (facing toward the lower right) in the upper left corner of the photo that shows this nicely. The junction between the backward-pointing toe and the inner forward-pointing toe lies to the left of the intersection between the two outer toes. Another way of saying this is that the two outer forward-pointing toes join a little to the outside of the center of the foot. The same asymmetry shows in the right track in the lower right corner.

The spotted sandpiper is another bird that patrols stream and lake margins. These small birds–about the size of a starling–search for invertebrates on the edges of streams, ponds, marshes, and other bodies of fresh water. Their tracks (shown in the next photo) reflect their erratic and meandering movements. The three forward-pointing toes are relatively symmetrical and diverge at wide angles. On the back of the foot there’s short spur oriented to the inside that may or may not make an impression in tracks. The left print just below the stick in the upper right corner shows the spur nicely.

Raccoons prefer comfortable surfaces so it’s no accident that the animal that left the tracks shown in the photo below stepped along a soft deposit of sand left by a recent flood. The raccoon moved from the upper right to the lower left, leaving tracks in the sequence right rear, left front, left rear, right front. The difference between the wider but tighter rear track and the narrower, more spreading front track is easily seen in the set of prints at the upper right. Raccoons habitually work the edges of streams and ponds where they find tasty shellfish, frogs, crayfish and other invertebrates. The pattern of alternating sets of hind and front tracks from opposite sides tells us the animal was moving at a pace-walk.

Mink are also in the habit of travelling along the margins of water bodies. The animal that made the tracks in the next photo was moving from right to left at a lope, and the track sequence is right front, right rear, left front, left rear. Like raccoons, mink have five toes on both front and rear feet, but it’s not uncommon for the impression of the inner toe to be missing. In fact the only print in the photo that shows a clear inner toe is the left front. This track also shows the middle pad protuberances (just behind the toes) and the heel pad (the small indentation behind the middle pad). Mink share a taste for crayfish, frogs and invertebrates with raccoons, and occasionally catch small fish. They’re adaptable predators and may also hunt for small mammals on the surrounding land.

The mink’s larger relative, the river otter, also leaves its tracks along the edges of ponds and streams, but for this creature it’s mainly a matter of convenient travel between feeding areas. I found the tracks in the photo below on the inside of a bend in a stream where an otter had taken a short cut across a large sandbar. The sequence of tracks is the same as that of the mink tracks in the previous image, and the family resemblance–both mink and otters are mustelids–can be seen in spite of the different substrates. Otters are more aquatic than mink and capture most of their food in the water.

When they’re not foraging in the water otters spend their time on conveniently accessed sites near the water. They roll on soft surfaces like grass and forest duff to clean and dry their fur, and they socialize with other members of their family group. They also leave notices in the form of scat to non-resident otters that the territory is occupied. The otter scat in the photo below contains crayfish shell fragments, but it’s also common to find scats containing fish scales and bones, or the slimy remains of frogs. Otters often use latrines where scat of various ages and contents can be found.

The beaver is another very aquatic mammal. In the photo below you see two beaver tracks, a right front (above) and a right rear (below), both facing toward the right. In the front track the four toes show clearly and the two heel pads appear as elongated grooves because the foot slipped in the mud. In the bottom part of the frame the three outer toes of the hind print show clearly but the two inner toes are obscured by the front print. As is often the case, the webbing of the hind foot doesn’t show. The size difference between the front and rear tracks is striking and helps us to understand why beavers are such strong swimmers. Beavers feed on the leaves, bark, and stems of woody plants year-round, but during the growing season the diet also includes aquatic plants, cattails, sedges, and forbs. Their tracks usually lead between the water and foraging sites on land, and signs of branches being dragged into the water are common.

Smaller–but just as well adapted to life in water–is the muskrat. Like the beaver, the muskrat has rear feet that are much larger than the front. In the photo below, the track farthest to the left is the right rear, and just to its right you see the right front. On the right side of the frame the left rear lies below the left front. Notice that the small inside toes of the front feet made impressions in both of the front prints. The muskrat’s front feet, like those of the beaver, are adapted for handling food items and building materials rather than for swimming.

If you wander along shorelines you may find muskrat latrines. These sites are usually located on logs or rocks that lie in the water but protrude above water level. In the next photo you can see a rock decorated with scat of varying ages, deposited as an announcement that the territory is occupied. Although muskrats occasionally consume animal foods they are primarily plant eaters, and their scats usually contain fibrous material.

This is just a sampling of some of the wonders to be found along the margins of lakes, streams, and marshes. There’s always something to be discovered, so next time you’re out and about, take a detour to check a stream edge or a muddy shoreline. Better yet–if you don’t mind some wading–try a stream walk. It could be just the thing on a summer day.

Raccoon Spring Fever

Winter is still with us, but the season is advancing and mild days are beginning to outnumber the cold ones. Raccoons have spent the frigid periods in a state of torpor, denned up in hollow trees, rock crevices, second-hand burrows, or perhaps under your porch. On warm days the animals emerge from their winter dens and roam about in search of food and mates. Their habitual use of a gait called the pace-walk gives their trails a unique and easily recognizable appearance.

In the pace-walk the tracks lie in sets of two, each set made up of front and rear prints from opposite sides. One of these prints generally falls ahead of the other (although they can be perfectly even). In each successive pair the sides of the front and rear tracks switch and, if they are uneven, the leading side also switches. In the photo above the larger hind prints lie ahead of the smaller front ones. The succession of tracks, starting at the lower right corner, is: left front with right rear, right front with left rear, left front with right rear, and right front with left rear.

Raccoons are not good at digging, and as long there’s a substantial snowpack they have difficulty getting at edibles in the leaf litter. But seeps and unfrozen streams are not only free of snow and ice–they also harbor tasty morsels like aquatic insect larvae, worms, snails, and other invertebrates. Seeps are likely to form during mild weather, and they’re usually found in the same places each year. Muddy tracks like the ones below tell us when raccoons have been visiting them.

There are two separate passages in the photo above, the upper one heading from left to right and the lower one going in the opposite direction. If you focus on the darker tracks in the middle of the photo, you can see the similarity between the patterns in the two photos. But in addition to being more irregular, the mud-on-snow tracks have a slightly different arrangement. In each set of two the larger hind foot touched down a little behind the smaller front foot. This, and the fact that the steps are shorter, tells us that the animal was going slower. The icy crust was probably slippery and the raccoon needed to be more careful with its footing.

As spring–and mud season–draws closer, raccoon tracks can be found in all sorts of wet places. When the photo below was taken a thin blanket of snow covered most of the landscape, but the silty stream margins were clear and unfrozen. The small tracks heading in both directions were made by minks, and the larger ones belong to a raccoon. There’s a pretty clear hind print near the right edge of the frame, but the other raccoon prints (one to its left and another toward the bottom of the frame) are distorted because the animal slipped in the mud. In fact the very weird track at the lower edge of the photo is actually two prints, one on top of the other. Apparently the heavier raccoon had more difficulty with its footing than the smaller minks did.

Here’s another trail made by a pace-walking raccoon on a nicely moistened sand road. The pairs of prints are a little closer together than the ones in the first photo, and the rear tracks fall slightly behind the front–both signs of lower speed. Maybe with its feet sinking slightly in the soft sand the animal chose to move more carefully, or maybe it just wasn’t in a hurry. On a mild spring day even a raccoon might feel like taking it easy.