Date: Saturday, Sept 28, 2024

Place: Near ‎⁨Chief’s Point 28⁩, ⁨Saugeen⁩, ⁨ON, Canada⁩. See

https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=12gfy3t4agJQSdNBNnT1p9HCXjCI&ll=44.664372199999995%2C-81.28178&z=17

Time: approx, 10am – 4pm

Main references:

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

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

Weather: mostly bright sunlight, windy, up to about 22 C

Discussion: This was our first day at the Sauble Beach area on indigenous land. According to Wikipedia:

“Chief’s Point 28 (Ojibwe: Giigonke Piinsaugen) is an Aboriginal reserve located between Sauble Beach and Wiarton, Ontario on Lake Huron. It is one of the reserves of the Saugeen First Nation.”

The sandy substrate (even off the beach) was great for tracking. I have too many photos to post them all, or even discuss every photo that I post. The photos I do post will be in blocks, and roughly chronological, with comments if noteworthy. The number of different species that we tracked was amazing.

Roughly chronological account: We started by walking along a sandy road parallel to the beach:

I noticed that when the sand is very dry, as it was here, the tracks don’t always show much detail. In the last photo (Pic 13) the sand was damper, and hence more detail shows:

As you can see there were lots of turkey tracks present. Tracks 3 and 4 show possible toad tracks. You can see clearly the front and hind feet. In the 5th photo we see the ‘W’ shape of a rodent bounding, possible Deer Mouse, based on the trail width. In photos 6 – 9 I think we are seeing Striped Skunk tracks, based on the pattern and large claw marks in some of them.

Closer to the water we found bones from a large fish. After reading online possible candidates are: Lake Sturgeon, Paddlefish, Freshwater Drum or Common Carp:

In the series above is the 4th photo of a gill raker? See

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gill_raker

The last photo looks like pharyngeal teeth located in the throat of the fish. They look similar to the ones for Carp shown at the site linked below:

https://www.rippton.com/blog/do-carp-have-teeth-interesting-fish-facts#:~:text=Do%20Carp%20Have%20Any%20Teeth,frontal%20area%20of%20their%20mouths.

Based on the large scales of this fish, my best guess is the remains are from a Common Carp (Cyprinus carpio).

Still on the beach we found what looked like more skunk tracks, showing the longer claws on the front feet:

Crossing a narrow strip of water

we were then technically on an island, which leads via a more narrow strip of land to a wider area:

There were so many tracks here!

These are my initial guesses:

• Pic 1: skunk
• Pics 2, 3 & 15: Greater Yellowlegs, because we saw them and the tracks are similar in shape and size to the ones shown in the Bird Tracks & Sign book (p. 125)
• Pics 4, 5, 24 & 25: a very small rodent, maybe a shrew (with some bird tracks over top)?
• Pic 6 & 26: deer understep
• Pics 8a & 8b: turkey
• Pics 9, 10, 11, 16, 17, 18, 21 & 22: muskrat showing tail drag
• Pics: 12, 13, 14, 19, 20: crayfish (pretty much confirmed from a picture in another tracking book – was this the invertebrate book?
• Pic 23: a giant fish head (what type?)
• Pic 27 & 28: an unknown (beetle?) larvae burrowing in the sand
• Pics 29 – 33: Snapping Turtle. At least that was the opinion of the group who made measurements. Is the direction of travel in Pic 33 from top to bottom?
• Pic 34: Ringbill Gull (we saw it make the tracks!)

We then moved on further out onto the ‘island’ away from the beach, with some interesting finds:

Comments:

• Pic 1 and 2: bones again of a large fish, with the vertebrae
• Pic 3: some nice crow tracks showing a lot of detail
• Pic 4: bones and wing of a bird, possibly a gull
• Pic 5: deer scat

We then moved on to explore an ‘island’ of mainly dense cedar trees. I stayed near the edge but others in the group went deep into the centre. I wonder what they found? Here are a few of my findings:

Comments:

• Pics 1 and 2: more very large fish bones. I’m beginning to suspect that these large fish are caught and dragged ashore by an otter (see Pics 5 – 7)
• Pic 3: these rose hips were so beautiful I could not resist photographing them
• Pic 4: I came upon this large impressive snake resting on a path that ran along the edge of the ‘island’. According to INaturalist this is a Common Watersnake (Nerodia sipedon), or maybe a subspecies (Wikipedia) Northern Watersnake (Nerodia sipedon sipedon).
• Pics 5 – 7: Alexis explained that these photos are signs of a Northern River Otter. In Pics 5 and 6 there was a mound of grass that had been scraped together with a gooey intestinal secretion? in the centre. This behaviour is described on page 480 of Elbroch’s book. Nearby was also a pile of scat on a mound of moss that smelt strongly (to me) of fish. Elbroch describes how these behaviours (including otter rolls) are often associated with narrow strips of land between water. Everything fits for River Otter!

The next series of photos were taken away from the wooded ‘island’ area, but on the open strip of land between the water (grassland) and the muddy beach area:

Here are some notes:

• Pic 1: a (Painted ?) turtle shell. Why was it out in the open? Do Otters predate turtles?
• Pic 2: out in the open grassland there were numerous easily visible runs or tunnels through the grass floor. It seems likely that these were made by voles.
• Pic 3: this egg was found on/in a very large mound of reeds that had been heaped into a pile (presumably by people). The size of the egg (not recorded here) suggested this was an egg from a Canada Goose. According to http://birdfact.com Canada Geese usually look for nest sites near to – or even surrounded by water. Nests are frequently built on top of raised areas.
• Pic 3 and 4: a dead Gull found on the mound. Did a predator take it here, e.g., one of the Marsh Harriers we saw flying near this site.
• Pic 5 and 6: mink tracks with the typical splayed pattern of the toes.
• Pic 7 – 10: beautifully clear prints of Raccoon. We had some discussion as to how one tells a left print from a right. In Pic 9 we can see that toe one (inner toe) of the hind foot (the longer one!) is lower than the others. What about telling left from right of the front feet? I’m not sure if I am remembering this correctly (I’ve been wrong before) but it looks like the heal pad extends further down on the outside of the front feet. This seems clear in Pic 10 where the front track is a left.

Final comments:

There was so much to see on this trip that it was hard to give a relatively succinct account. And yet, it occurred to me that the account given here is a very personal account of what I saw. Although other people saw many of the things I did they also saw things that I didn’t, or other things were more meaningful to them. For example, I recall that at one point people were taking a long time analyzing a pile of bird bones and feathers. (I was less interested in the specific classification of the specific types of bird bones). We all had different experiences, and if we had time we could build up a much more detailed description of this place if we pooled our experiences.

This site was on indigenous land. Maybe it was my imagination, but I’m not sure we were entirely welcome. At the very least the local people seemed puzzled by what we were doing.

The land here was beautiful, but had a desolate feel about it. We were encroaching on the land of many different animals and so at best could be viewed as ‘guests’.