I’ve been finding tons of flicker scats lately. Here is one. Its a good bet that a solid bird scat that looks like this (coated in white) is a flicker scat… but break it open and find nothing but ants and sand and its 100% identified.
We found a wolf frozen in this iceberg. No idea what happened to it. This was right off the road so maybe it got hit by a car.
Got to do some bird banding of the black rosy finches. I love the black and pink coloration on these birds.
Spring migration in the Tetons. Back to daily bison traffic jams. No complaints here though.
I believe these are meadowlark tracks. This is an area covered in meadowlarks and the size and blackbird shape are right. Some bird tracks are really hard to identify but I’m pretty sure that’s what these are..
Some nice vole tracks. Voles have equal length front and hind legs so they are able to trot like you see here. Trotting helps them cruise through their grass tunnels without bumping the ceiling and it is also a great help in track identification.
Some striped skunk tracks. Without the size reference you could mistake these for bear tracks!
Retired cougar-hound Thor shows that she still has her woods prowess.
If you have put in some practice but you want to step up your tracking skills, look for tricky tracks that don’t make sense at first. Try to pick out the toes, heel pads, and which feet are fronts vs hinds. Stick with it until you figure it out. Sometimes it may take a LONG time and then it makes sense. These are red squirrel tracks; identifiable by the track in the lower left – a front foot.
Cool otter tail drag, scent marking.
It might be hard to see but we found some bear hair stuck to this tree that a beaver took down. The paper would be titled “Relevance of Beaver Chewed Trees in Black Bear Grooming Habits.” It does make a perfect comb.
The hind foot of an Uinta ground squirrel.
Vole feeding sign on a choke cherry branch. I’ve heard that pocket gophers will eat inner bark through the winter so I wonder if this could be them. This looks like classic vole feeding though.
I’ve been working on local ungulates. Sometimes it is really hard to tell them apart so I made this little collage as a fun exercise.
Natural Skills 