Date: August 14/15, 2024

Place: 286 South St, Southampton, ON N0H 2L0, Canada. This is in the southern end of Southampton. You go to the very end of South St., where there is free parking and easy access to the beach.

Times: various

Main references:

Online, e.g.
https://wildlife-species.canada.ca/species-risk-registry/virtual_sara/files/public/LakeHuronGrasshopper.pdf

https://naturalcommunities.net/blogs/news/american-beachgrass-guardian-of-the-great-lakes?srsltid=AfmBOoqMAcwJo8e7xsb5OMfVycp7im33BUkxTbKXwUKAKpAE-UuDZcdL

Discussion: At Southampton there are white sandy beaches. Apparently the sand was formed thousands of years ago as the glaciers retreated, which also formed the great lakes. The local communities are struggling with erosion of the sand dunes. Ammophila breviligulata, also known as American beachgrass or marram grass, is the principle plant used to halt the erosion. I had difficulty finding much online concerning the ecology of the marram grass communities. The beach ecosystem is a habitat and feeding ground for a mosaic of wildlife, including shorebirds (e.g., the Piping Plover,), invertebrates, reptiles, terrestrial insects and vegetation. An important invertebrate is the Lake Huron Grasshopper (Trimerotropis huroniana), and conservation strategies are underway to protect this species. The sand dunes that are stabalized by marram grass occur in a narrow strip between the beach and the beach houses. This is where I looked for tracks as they tended to be free of human disturbance. I have not had a lot of time to research the tracks I found, so I have put my photos into groups, depending on who made them. I don’t have a lot of confidence in my designations, particularly the group ‘reptiles/amphibians’. Am I seeing turtle or skink tracks? I don’t know.

Reptile/amphibian tracks ?

Rodents, e.g. mice:

Eastern Cottontail:

Crows and a bird:

Seagulls:

Insects / beatles:

Fox ?:

A picture with several different animal tracks:

Some thoughts:
These tracks are fascinating because the fine sand holds so much detail. I think I could have got much better photos if I had taken them early in the morning or in the evening. I had to post-process then to increase the contrast as I took them in the middle of the day when the sun was almost overhead. I literally only spend two half hour sessions investigating these tracks. I feel I could have taken a whole week to study them! I think most of these tracks were made by animals at night. I saw nothing during the day, except some grasshoppers.

Postscript:

I posted some of the mysterious tracks that were in the Reptile/Amphibian category to the Facebook group ‘Animals Don’t cover their Tracks’.

There were some excellent comments (as is usual for this site). Jim Hilgartner posted a picture from a site, see

https://www.bear-tracker.com/toad.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawFF2i9leHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHZGhi4uZ_GOsnXXAuTYVvwCzkbKODKrHdtpYDDfCOYbk8q4dmSRW7uLkQw_aem_cXGfjlEY8JJSXNwNhVDPsQ

that is so close to some of my tracks that I am now convinced what I was seeing were toad tracks, although not the Western Toad as that species is not in out area. See below:

Apparently toads prefer walking to hopping and are mainly nocturnal. What we are seeing here is where the toes drag after each step. The above mentioned website gives some nice photos of the toes of a toad. Looking at toad tracks in some other books it is clear that the pattern of tracks depends very much on the substrate. So for example, toad tracks in mud may not show the drag marks that were so easily seen in fine sand.