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| Circles were drawn around each deer track to keep little feet away. Short sticks were placed next to each track. Then a longer stick could be lined up with the short sticks to show which direction the deer was headed. |
"Dirt Time" tracking workshops have been offered this spring by the Portland Tracking Club at
Oxbow Regional Park. They are generally offered on the last Sunday of each month, 9AM- 12PM. After a friend told me that they were terrific, we decided to check them out. It turns out that if you are into tracking, Oxbow in the springtime is an ideal place to do it. There is a floodplain which is under water in the rainy winter, but dry in the spring. It is completely covered with soft, fine sand, which is wonderful for holding prints. And in the spring, many animals are on the move. You can find the floodplain when you enter the park, by looking to your left for the floodplain parking area, which is marked with a sign.
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| Puffball fungi. |
The majority of mammals in the area are nocturnal. Tracking reveals their presence all around us. The experts who lead our group really knew what they were doing. Jasper found this so fascinating, he declared that it was "the best thing I've ever done in my whole life!".
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| Deer tracks. |
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| Tracks of a different sort- wood-boring beetles. |
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| Coyote. |
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| Alpine forget-me-not |
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| More wood-boring beetle tracks. |
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| Scotch broom. |
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| Rabbit tracks. |
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| The Sandy River. |
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