Tracking Class at Oxbow

Each spring, Terry Kem has been teaching an animal tracking class at Oxbow.  It's excellent!  He began with an overview of the identification process, and showed examples of each type of track with beautiful plaster casts.  He also showed us many different tracking guide and recommended Wildlife of the Pacific Northwest: Tracking and Identifying Mammals, Birds, Reptiles, Amphibians, and Invertebrates  by David Moscowitz, which is both thorough and specific to our area.

First, you look at the front and hind prints, and count how many toes have registered and whether there are visible claws.  Front prints are often larger than hind prints.  Four front toes, four hind toes, and visible claws indicates a canine (the somewhat oval tracks of coyotes, foxes, wolves and domestic dogs).  Four front toes, four hind toes, and no visible claws indicates a feline (the round tracks of mountain lions and domestic cats). Four front toes, four hind toes, and some visible claws indicates a rabbit.  Four front toes, five hind toes, and some visible claws indicates a rodent (moles, voles, squirrels, beaver, nutria, porcupine, groundhogs).  Five visible toes in both front and back can be many animals.  Bear tracks are usually easy to distinguish as they are rather big. Opossums have opposable thumbs.  Others with this pattern include skunks, weasels such as mink and otter, and raccoon.  Two front toes, two rear toes and no visible claws are deer and elk.  

We saw some amazing things.  There were lots of beaver tracks down by the river, and a mound of sand they had marked with their castoreum scent.  Jasper spotted a pileated woodpecker, and was able to observe it from quite close up without scaring it off.  It was hidden among the leaves, but he did get a picture and a short movie.  There are baby bear claw marks on an alder tree down by the river which are becoming quite famous because they are really pretty cool.  We were glad to see them again. Someone in our group found a nest of lovely blue eggs on the ground and urged us away from them, as some birds will abandon their nests if their eggs are disturbed.  And I spotted a western toad, which was a first for me and Jasper!  I understand they are quite common but they are most secretive critters.  We had only seen them before in captivity.

The Portland Tracking Club meets at Oxbow every last Sunday of the month at 9AM at the Oxbow floodplain parking lot for tracking expeditions.  They are very welcoming to newcomers. They have a Facebook page here where you can confirm tracking events: https://www.facebook.com/groups/117827544940736/ and they also have a blog where they record some of their findings at Oxbow: http://oxbowparktracking.com/.  

Rabbit tracks.

Elk track.

A line of deer tracks.  

Field clover.  Photo by Jasper.

Dove's foot geranium.  Photo by Jasper.

Pileated woodpecker. Photo by Jasper.

Cow parsnip.

English daisy.  Photo by Jasper.

Seven-spotted ladybug.

Garth Olson of the Portland Tracking Club shares the cool baby bear claw marks with a rapt audience of kids.

Wild cucumber.

Western toad.

Black lampyrid beetle.

Beaver tracks. 

A ground nest.  I wish I knew who these eggs belong to!