“Delusional in the Woods”

Swan River, Montana

First Location

Since we got through so many questions yesterday, we started at 9 am today. Piling into the SUVs again, we drove to the nearby Swan River. River habitats attract so much life. Water is a resource that everyone needs. We went through ten questions in less than 80 yards along the river. 

The first question was about tracks along the side of the road. A hooved animal with a single toe.  37) Horse prints.

Along the side of the river a pile of mud on the bank next to chewed sticks tells the story.  Beaver’s are territorial and signal to others by leaving mounds of castor scented muck on the edges of their realms. 

39) Beaver lodge (palace!) Beavers are ecosystem engineers, a keystone species on a landscape. They slow water flow, flood areas creating wetlands that become grasslands, and increase water temperature. This creates habitat for so many others. Although they don’t appreciate unrelated beavers, they will sometimes share their lodges with muskrats. Pro tip: Beaver scat makes good tinder for starting a fire.

This is another example of using the environment to determine species.  All small rodent scat has similar characteristics.  The differentiators here include the use of latrines (this is more than one bowel movement), and the tunnels under the snow and grass. Voles spend their winters in the subnivean zone, the area between the surface of the ground and the bottom of the snowpack. Owls, foxes and coyotes hunt them by sound, deftly plucking them out from their quiet, snowy tunnels. Voles are a very common North American species. Its likely that wherever you live, you have these tunnels in your mulch or lawn (most evident in the springtime). 40) Vole scat.

This scat is dark (protein) with hair and bones in it signaling it came from a carnivore.  It’s placement up on top of one of a log crossing the river and presence of more than one bowel movement (latrine) suggest a mustelid. It’s too small for an otter, so it must be mink scat. 41) Mink scat

Although this picture is tough to make out, in person the detail in these prints was clear. Three toes, webbed feet, all of the prints the same size. And geese were honking over head.

While waiting along the riverside for the facilitators to call us over, a few of us marveled at the rocks under foot. Montana has some of the most colorful rocks I’ve ever seen. Maybe you’re familiar with this iconic view of Lake McDonald in Glacier National Park?

I leaned in to whisper to Michelle that I’m afraid of heights. If we’re gonna cross these logs, it will take every bit of my strength, but I’ll do it. I don’t want to hold the group back. To my relief, she said there was an easier crossing around the bend.  Thankfully we could just step across! The facilitators, however, didn’t hesitate to walk the narrow beams.

43) Who? 44) What gait? 45) What direction?

The gait is a lope (one-two-one pattern). The prints are oblong. Its so bright, its hard to make out any toes. I found one print with toenail marks that gave direction. I cannot make any sense of the architecture of the prints – how many toes, shape of the pad, nothing. The small feet and lope gait makes me say mink. (Mustelids prefer to move at a lope).  I got the gait and the direction correct. But this is not a mink. The trail to the left shifts from a lope to a walk. From the right, a trot comes out of the woods. This variety is characteristic of skunks. They don’t have a preferred gait and like to change things up.  That can be a hallmark of a skunk track.  Their prints, when they can be discerned in the substrate, look like tiny bear paws.

There were several distinct piles of bones and fish scales on a fallen log.  I thought it was scat that had been eroded by the weather with only the bones and scales remaining.

Each pile is one whole fish (scales, jaw bones). There is no evidence that scat had been associated with the bones (rules out otter). Kingfishers return to their favorite perches for hunting and eating. Apparently, this log is the bird’s favorite place to dine. Much like owls that cough up undigestible bits of bone and hair, kingfishers cough up undigestible parts of the small fishes they eat.  Interesting kingfisher fact: they nest in deep mud holes on vertical river banks. These chambers are usually 3-6 feet deep, but can be up to fifteen feet long! Two lines/scratches on the bottom of the hole identify the burrow as a kingfisher’s. They have two toes pointing forward and two toes pointing backward. The marks are from where they land on the way in and out of the burrow.

Second Location

47) Elk print. Bigger than deer, outside edges of hooves dig in more so than deer.

48) Elk scat. The green-tinged color (especially the inside) and fragrance (smells like fresh hay) suggest this is less than 24 hours old.

49) Which foot (species specific)?

Deer, elk and moose carry most of their weight on their front feet (big heads, heavy racks), so their front feet tend to be a little bit larger than their hind feet.  It turns out the dewclaws (their 2nd and 5th toes) are differentiators, too. Since elk use their front feet more to stabilize themselves when walking and running, the dewclaws extend somewhat perpendicular to the center toes (3rd and 4th digits). The dewclaws on the hind feet sit a little higher up on the leg and are parallel to the hooves.

I didn’t take a picture of question 50. It was a pine marten trap.  A distinct rectangular piece was cut out of a dead standing snag (all the way through). A heavy gauge screen was attached to the back opening and a runner pole leaned from the ground to the open side of the hole in the tree trunk. It was deteriorated and no longer in use by pine martens or trappers, but served as a convenient platform for a pine squirrel to eat (a small midden was left behind). 

51) Black bear claw marks. They dig in as they run up the tree.  The different sizes of feet suggest this is a babysitter tree. Mama black bears will send their cubs up a tree for safe keeping when there’s danger or when she goes off to feed. They know not to come down until she calls them.

52) Flying squirrel tail (Bonus question). Sara’s dog, Griz, brought this back to her while they were out in the woods one day.  Yesterday, people had talked about Griz and how he’d found some animal sign and I thought he was a person. It’s not until just now, that I realize he’s a dog. A good dog. The size of this tail is consistent with tree squirrel. The shape of it (flat) tell us that it belongs to a flying squirrel.  It is very soft and plush with touch of white at the base. 

A pile of feathers and a skull.  I recognize the tail feathers, they look like a great horned owl’s.  I looked closer to see a raptor’s beak and the deep, large, round eye sockets of an owl. 53) Great Horned Owl

Last Location

This is Holland Creek. There was another class here last week with the same facilitators.  There was no water here last week.  Spring comes fast.

Scat was collected from the far side of this log

Michelle walked out onto this log to collect a bunch of scat that she brought back plated on her snowshoe. There was a lot more on the log.  That makes it a latrine. And its high up.

The size, location and presence of hallmark crayfish bits identify this as otter scat.  They love crayfish.

This next question prompted a lot of discussion about whether it was vomitus or a bowel movement.  Its a tube of grass with some hair and what appeared to me to be fecal matter at the bottom end of it. It’s big enough to belong to a substantial sized animal. Mountain lions might eat grass/chew on grass and vomit it up, but I’ve never heard of a cat passing grass in their stool.  I narrowed it done to wolf or bear. The bears are still sleeping, and it’s unlikely this has been here all winter. 55) Wolf scat; grass, tapeworms

The instructor thought that the folded/bent grass was indicative of it having passed through the intestines.  Since tapeworms attach in the small intestines, they aren’t commonly vomited up. But they can be.  And grass can get folded like this in the esophagus. Wild animals are said to self-medicate in a lot of ways.  One of which is to eat grass to help clear out intestinal parasites.  It looks like it works.

Last question! 56) What is this?

Picture your housecat standing with their butt in the air and their front legs stretched out if from of them scratching.  That is exactly what a mountain lion did here. It’s marking and conditioning their claws all at once.

These are mountain lion scrapes.

Last Stop

While Michelle tabulated the scores and wrote certificates, we enjoyed dinner and conversation at the Hungry Bear Bar and Grill.  I had a fantastic time. I enjoyed the company.  I learned so much and learned how much I’d already learned in all my wandering.

A passing score is 69%. There are four levels of Track and Sign Certification: Level I is 69-79; Level II is 80-89; Level III is 90-99 and Specialist is 100%.

I passed with room to spare (Level II)! I am officially a certified wildlife tracker and will be listed on the Tracker Certification website as such. If you have any interest in learning more about the natural environment around you or want to be able to find wildlife easier, sign up for one of these certification workshops. You will learn so much and develop and deeper connection to our world.

If you missed Day One, read it here.

If you’re interested in purchasing or licensing any images you see here, please email me: SNewenham at exploringnaturephotos.com, and I’ll make it happen.

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