Winter provides unique opportunities for gaining insight about the animals that live around us. With the exception of charismatic gray squirrels, most mammals are relatively elusive. Our headlights might reveal a glimpse of a fox darting across the street, or we may see a skunk or a raccoon in our backyard when we flick on an outside light at night.  But to most, the comings and goings of the mammals in our neighborhoods are a mystery.

Between Friday and Saturday this past weekend, Cape Cod received more than a foot and a half of snow. Although freshly fallen snow can provide a blank canvas on which to document animal movement, 18 inches is almost too much. Rather than individual paw prints that would register clearly in an inch or two of snow, when it’s this deep many animals are forced to push through the snow with their whole bodies, obscuring the tracks.  Ironically, it’s the smallest animals that have the advantage with the deepest snow. Mice and other rodents, light enough to walk on the surface without breaking through, can scurry along the surface of the snow. Or as is more commonly the case with meadow voles (Microtus pennsylvanicus), they can tunnel under it.

The photo below shows tracks left by a mouse – given how common they are on Cape Cod, it’s likely these were made by a white-footed mouse (Peromyscus leucopus). On a different surface it’s possible to find mouse tracks with distinct paw prints, but in light snow (as in the picture below) the tail often drags, creating it’s own mark, and the front and hind feet create a single elongated print on each side as the mouse bounds through the snow.

Unfortunately I had only a brief time to explore after the snowfall, and the majority of the tracks I found were from snow-shoeing humans (below), but I look forward to finding more as the winter goes on.