Date: Wed, May 18, 2022

Place: south end of Guelph, ON (Kortright Rd, near Gordon St.).

Time: 4:15pm

Main references:

‘The Tracker’s Field Guide: A Comprehensive Manual for Animal Tracking’, James C. Lowery, Second Edit., Falcon Guide

‘Bird Tracks & Sign: A Guide to North American Species’, Mark Elbroch and Eleanor Marks, First Edit., Stackpole Books

Weather: gray/overcast, slight drizzle, 13 C. Last rained Mon 16. Moderate wind from W.

Observations: Tracks: deer, raccoon, dog, woodchuck?, bird (killdeer?), Canada goose. Saw: 2 Woodchuck that hid under a woodpile, grackles chasing a crow, gray squirrel. Heard: killdeer, red-winged blackbird, woodchuck (sharp screech), chipping sparrow?, and many other birds.

Description of the area: The tracking area is some disturbed land beside a recently build housing complex. The mud on the ground had hardened and so the tracks were probably from before the last rain. A rough sketch of the area is attached below. As one can see, the tracking area is between a wetland, the new housing complex, a large dirt mound, and a main road.

A google map with the address is attached below. The tracking area is indicated with a yellow star.

Woodchuck tracks ?:

I saw some tracks that I initially thought were from a raccoon. Although they had roughly the same shape and size as raccoon, they also seemed different. I also saw 2 woodchucks running for cover under a woodpile in the immediate area which got me thinking. The clearest set of tracks are shown below:

My sketch of a pair of tracks is shown below, along with a rough sketch several tracks, and measurements :

The following measurements for woodchuck are from Lowery. All measurements are in inches. Note: Lowery does not include claws when measuring the length of a track (FW = front width, FL = front length, HW = hind width, HL = hind length):

• FW: 1 3/8 – 1 7/8
• FL: 1 5/8 – 2 1/16
• HW: 1 1/2 – 2
• HL: 1 5/8 – 2 3/4
• Trail width: 5 1/4 – 6 3/8
• Stride (diagonal walk): 3 1/2 – 10

And Lowery gives the following measurements for raccoon:

• FW: 1 1/2 – 2 3/4
• FL: 1 1/2 – 3
• HW: 1 5/16 – 2 9/16
• HL: 2 – 4 1/16
• Trail width: 2 3/4 – 5 3/4
• Stride: 8 1/4 – 17

We note that raccoons have 5 toes front and back, and because a woodchuck is a large rodent, it has 4 toes on the front feet and 5 on the back. Do the tracks in the top represent two front feet of a woodchuck? The palm and heel pads seem to suggest this. It’s hard for me to determine how many toes are in the right track. The measurements for width and length for both raccoon and woodchuck are quite similar. But the trail width suggests woodchuck, as does the stride. Below are two photographs of several tracks:

The gait I’m assuming is a walk or a pace. The first photo I think shows clearly at the top of the photo a left front foot and a right hind foot. I attach a photo of the probable animal below!

In the future I will need to return to this site to try and get clearer track photos.

Domestic dog tracks:

Tracks of a large dog were obvious and plentiful. I focussed on one set of tracks that seem to indicate a canine trot (see Lowery), which I sketched below:

Then I focussed on a single pair of tracks, sketched below:

This clearly shows the right hind foot slightly ahead of the left front front foot (do we still call this an overstep if the gait is a trot?). It is interesting that small plants were growing in the track so I’m guessing this tells me that the tracks are at least a few days old. All the toes and some claws are clearly visible. A photo of this set is below:

White-tailed deer tracks:

Closer to the road were some large deer tracks. They were clearly made when the substrate was soft mud as they are deep and the dewclaws show. See my sketch below:

Ignoring the dewclaws this seems to be a very large track. Could the track have deformed over time? The measurements given by lowery are:

• FW: 5 3/8 – 2 1/8
• FL: 2 1/8 – 3
• HW: 1 5/8 – 2 1/8
• HL: 1 7/8 – 2 3/4
• Trail width: 3 1/4 – 9 1/4
• Stride (diagonal walk): 15 1/8 – 16

A corresponding photo is shown below:

Next I looked at a set of tracks, although there were not really enough to get accurate measurements for stride:

Canada goose tracks:

There were some very nice Canada goose tracks near a dried up mud puddle, shown in the photo below:

Measurements and trail patterns consistent with those on p. 151 of Elbroch and Marks.

Killdeer tracks ?:

There were many bird tracks (killdeer?) in the dried up mud puddle, see below:

These appear consistent with the tracks shown on p. 111 of Elbroch and Marks. Notice how toe 1 is absent and the metatarsal pads register very little or not at all. The measurements in Elbroch and Marks are:

• track length: 1 – 1 3/16
• track width: 1 1/8 – 1 7/16

which is about right. Next time I should take more accurate measurements. Apparently sandpipers and dunlins are similar, but register toe 1, so I think this is indeed a killdeer.