Well I’ve been busy lately. We took a trip to Oregon for another tracking evaluation. We had some great questions and intense rain. Now I’m back in Wyoming looking for work and a place to live so I can stay here through the winter. I’m getting very excited for the snow tracking season. Wolves, cougars, foxes, elk, moose, and easy trailing… its going to be fun!
River otter tracks in some sweet mud.
Faint tracks with the culprit in view.
Cool beetle trail.
Awesome shrew tracks. These are actually easy to identify when they are clear. All mammals evolved from a creature with five toes on their front feet and five on their hind feet and shrews are one of the oldest mammals. So if you find a super tiny set of tracks and all feet show five toes, you’ve got a shrew.
Rough skinned newt.
Wasps eating a pear. They were a little slow-moving, I think from all the sugar.
I believe these are pheasant scats. We found them in an open hay barn and they were totally full of ants.
Some great nutria tracks. One cool thing I learned about nutrias is that they don’t have any webbing on their pinky toes of their hind feet.
Snail tracks on the beach.
This was a fun eval question. This is an injured coyote. One of his tracks just shows up as a couple dots. Somehow he is able to make a living in this harsh world.
Nice mink trail walking towards the water.
Mystery bone. Found this on the shore of a lake in Idaho. Haven’t been able to figure out what it is… some kind of fish I think. If you have ideas let me know! *Update: with the help of some folks I’ve learned that this is the spiney fin bone from a catfish! Pretty cool.
A recent visitor to the office…
Here’s Michelle pointing to a grizzly bear bite. This was a big bear – the bite was about 6 and a half feet high!
Grizzly bear hairs.
We had an amazing day of trailing yesterday. There is a brief window where there is snow on the ground and the bears haven’t started hibernating yet. We followed this female black bear for miles.
The fall colors and the mountains are spectacular here. I think this is one of the most beautiful landscapes I’ve ever been in.
Natural Skills 
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