January Town Forest Walk

It was a beautiful day for our monthly town forest walk and despite the meager amount of snow still on the ground, we were able to see quite a few tracks in the woods! While we know many animals make the town forest their home, we do not get to see most of them. As elusive as they are (except for those squirrels!) they do leave traces behind to let us know who's been around and active. One sign we look for is animal tracks, another is animal scat. Though most of the tracks and scat we see in the town forest have been left behind by people and their dogs, there were many others scattered about - particularly off the trails.

Tracks we observed today included dog, squirrel, rabbit, deer, fisher, and a possible fox. Rabbit and squirrel tracks look almost the same. Both of these animals land with their back paws in front of their front paws. But rabbits stagger their front paws while squirrels keep their front paws side by side.

Scat that we noticed were left behind by rabbit and deer. These are also similar in appearance. Rabbit scat look like tiny marbles - very round. Deer scat have a more oblong, bullet-type shape that comes to a point on one end and has a concave depression on the other end.

Other highlights of the trip included some adventures our groups had in our woods - some were enjoying the woods of Narnia while others were exploring in the Forbidden Forest. One rogue band of outsiders reemerged from the woods with a handful of sticks and cries of triumph! It was heart warming to see them all enjoying being outside!

Enjoy pictures below from today's walk:

Fisher Tracks:

Rabbit Scat:

A spot where a squirrel enjoyed a snack!

Another squirrel snack bar!

Deer scat:

Two "beds" in a deer yard:

Rabbit track:

Deer tracks: