Morning light on the Tetons…
I believe this is a cormorant pellet. I found it in an area heavily used by cormorants and it is full of small fish bones.
Beautiful young black bear. Got to watch him rip this log open.
Raven pellet. Look for the shiny bits of aluminum foil.
Wolf tracks and scat full of large bones.
This is a cottonwood root. I thought it was cool to see how it grows around river rocks.
My cozy town of Kelly Wyoming.
The foot of a 1 year old female mountain lion.
Skunk scat full of bald-faced hornets.
A goldfinch was feeding on this thistle and left us a small yellow scat.
Here’s what thistle looks like when fed on by a chipmunk. They clip off the thistle heads and feed on them in a pile on the ground. In the background you can see piles of thistle down.
Sometimes its hard to tell if the thistle was opened by the wind or a bird actually plucked out the seeds to eat them. If you look closely you can see the seed that they are trying to eat. When the wind opens the thistle, the seeds will still be attached to the downy part.
Nice bald eagle tracks.
Here is where the eagle above ate or at least handled a fish. Look closely for the fish scales.
Gull pellet containing crab parts.
Crayfish gastrolith. These are commonly found in otter scats. They live in the stomach of crayfish and store calcium carbonate which they use when they molt and grow a new shell. I’ve been wondering about these things for a while and very thankful to some fellow trackers that helped me figure this one out!
One footed gull. The left foot is normal and you can see the tracks if you look closely. The right foot is injured and just makes those paired impressions.
Nice pelican tracks. Pelicans are one of very few birds that have webbing between all four toes.
Fresh scat of a sage grouse. The green color is very distinctive of sage grouse scat.
I interrupted some type of raptor that was eating this spotted sandpiper. There are a lot of kestrels in this area.
Tiny shrew tracks.
Ravens broke off these cottonwood branches and dropped them to the ground. Maybe they were making tools? I couldn’t find any sign of feeding on the branches.
That’s all for now thanks for reading!
Natural Skills 