When conditions are right, spotting animal tracks becomes much easier. Wet sand or mud and fresh fallen snow are two of the best surfaces for capturing imprints. While some parts of New England received a foot or more of snow over the last day or two, here in Bourne we only received about 2 or 3 inches. With snow, less is often more when it comes to studying animal tracks. This morning, when I left the house for work, the ~1/2 inch of wet snow that had accumulated at that point provided the perfect medium for capturing the fine details of tiny paw prints. The tracks pictured here belong to the ubiquitous eastern gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis). These fluffy tailed creatures are frequent visitors to my yard, happily foraging under the bird feeder for anything dropped from above or tossed aside by the pickier avian visitors. 

Given what I know about the fauna of my yard, I was fairly confident that these were squirrel tracks the moment I saw them. But even if I wasn’t, there are a number of key identification characteristics that you could use to identify tracks left by eastern gray squirrels. First, consider the size of each paw print. In eastern gray squirrels, the front foot is approximately 1 1/4” to 1 3/4” long (but will appear shorter if the hind pad did not imprint), while the rear foot is approximately 2 to 2 1/2” long. Second, how many toes are visible on each foot? All squirrels produce tracks with four toes showing on the front feet and five on the hind feet. This can help distinguish them from raccoons which typically present tracks with five toes on both the front and back feet. Third, consider the foot placement. When squirrels are bounding, the front feet will actually be behind the imprints left by the hind feet, and each set of tracks can be spaced two to three feet apart. It is also worth noting the relatively symmetrical front foot placement in squirrel tracks; this can help differentiate them from the tracks of rabbits in less clear examples. The placement of rabbits’ front feet tends to be offset from each other. 

Finally, asking yourself some basic questions can significantly narrow down your options when trying to identify which animal produced a particular set of tracks. For example, considering what species are present in your area can in this case eliminate many other species of squirrel that could have produced similarly sized tracks. Also, if you follow the tracks for some distance, ask yourself where they are coming from and where they are going. If the tracks start at the base of one tree and disappear at the base of another, it’s likely you have a tree-climbing species, such as a squirrel, and you can easily eliminate species with potentially similar tracks, such as rabbits. 

Did you get out in today’s snow? Did you find any tracks? Were you able to identify them?