A Good Morning

Boy do I love tracking. I went out this morning not expecting to find anything crazy and ended up seeing so much cool stuff. I found the spot where a hawk killed a Blue Jay, which I recognized from the scat spray- a thing that only hawks do. I found the tracks of a mother red fox bringing her pups down to a pool to drink. I caught an American toad and got it to make tracks for me. Found some nice Raven tracks and some really nice duck tracks. I thought they were grouse tracks which was very exciting for me because grouse is one of the last species whose tracks I need to find for the Apprenticeship but it turns out that the tracks were from some weird duck wandering around in the forest.

I also got to trail a Coyote, Gray fox, deer and Moose for a long distance in the sand.

Here is the blue jay kill site. The white stuff is scat sprayed out by a hawk. Could be a Buteo (Red Tail, Red Shoulder etc) or an Accipter (Sharp shinned, Cooper's). Its most likely an accipiter kill, since blue jays are hard for a Buteo to catch. Owls don't make the scat spray.

Size reference on the toad:

Forest duck and toad tracks.


Red fox puppy. This is known by the size (which might suggest Gray fox) and the caloused ridge at the base of the heel.