PeterLab

Tracking under the bridge

On Tuesday we walked down through the underpass next to Hoisington Brook to look at the snow on the underpass for tracks. There were tracks on the ice under the bridge.

Tracking #1

[MAP]

On Tuesday, we went to the shoreline down by Hoisington Brook near the beaver lodges with D T-T, and we saw lots of tracks in the snow, including

• grey squirrel tracks
• red fox tracks and urine marker
• unidentified small bird tracks 
• great blue heron tracks

We saw a great blue heron and many ducks.

Fox tracks:

Grey squirrel tracks

Bird tracks crossing fox tracks:

 

Great blue heron tracks and my footprints

We didn't see any beaver tracks, but we did see small trees that has been gnawed by beavers.

While we were out we took sediment and water samples to try to breed copepods with.

We checked the tracks against the listing in Scats and Tracks of the Northeast: A Field Guide to the Signs of Seventy Wildlife Species by James C. Halfpenny and Jim Bruchac.

Today, after the snow storm, we went out for a walk and looked for animal tracks in the same area. The fox didn't seem to have been around, but there were definitely a lot of gull tracks at the mouth of Hoisington Brook.

We didn't see any heron tracks, but we did see the heron.

I think the same one has lived down there for years. I wrote a poem about the heron that hangs out at the mouth of the brook a few years ago.