Tracks, scat, slides, and porcupine butts

It seems like the weather has kept me cooped up indoors all winter.  Over the past two weeks, local schools have been in session for a grand total of two days out of ten; on one of the days that they actually had school there was a weather delay.  I have already had to cancel or reschedule thirty-five school programs since the second week of January.  So imagine my excitement to have nice weather on Saturday (09 February) for a planned animal signs hike at the Chippewa Watershed Conservancy's Hall's Lake Natural Area.  Sunny weather and a couple of inches of fresh snow!  What more could we ask for!

Hall's Lake is located on the far west side of Isabella County.  The three main preserves (Kabana, Neely, and Schaftenaar) that make up Hall's Lake Natural Area encompass 155 acres of woodland and wetland protect nearly one half of the shoreline of Hall's Lake from development.  This land serves as habitat for a wide variety of animal species.  I was fairly confident that we could find tracks (or other sign) for several common species such as white-tailed deer, coyote, squirrels, mice, and voles.  All of these tracks were present and easy to find.  We also discovered a set of tracks belonging to either a small American mink or a large long-tailed weasel - there is a little bit of overlap in track size so I was not 100% confident in assigning the tracks to one species.

The best tracks of the day were a surprise to me - they probably shouldn't be, but I rarely see them.  We found tracks from both the North American river otter (Lontra canadensis) and bobcat (Lynx rufus) along the shore of Hall's Lake.  At first I had some difficulty identifying the tracks because both animals had traveled along the same path and their prints sometimes overlapped.  Also, snow had drifted into many of the tracks making it hard to see their features.  Finally, the tracks diverged in a sheltered area and I was able to see enough identifying features to make a positive identification.

This is a print from an otter - the important thing to note is that it has five widely spread toes.

Here is a set of all four otter feet as it bounded along in the snow - the otter was traveling from right to left in the picture.  We did notice several tail drags along this path, but I didn't photograph any of them.

Here is one of the bobcat tracks.  Note how this track has only four toes.  We also found several coyote tracks.  It's easy to tell the bobcat and coyote tracks apart; look for toenails.  If you see toenails the print belongs to a coyote - cats (such as bobcats) usually have their claws retracted and the nails rarely show up in their footprints.

In this picture you can easily see the spacing of the bobcat's tracks.  At one point I couldn't decide if some of the tracks belonged to a small bobcat or a large domestic cat.  The prints were in rough terrain and the stride was quite short, but here in the open on this trail the animal opened ups its gait.

We eventually discovered the tracks of not one, but two bobcats on site.  The two could be told apart  by the different size of their tracks.  Like most wild cat species, bobcats will not usually share a territory with another animal of the same sex.  Males normally have larger territories than females.  Either Hall's Lake Natural Area is on the boundary of two territories of same-sex animals or two animals of the opposite sex have territories that overlap.

Bobcats often mark their territory by urinating or defecating in places where other Bobcats (and other predators such as coyote or red fox) will notice it.  Just like a domestic cat, this Bobcat kicked up the snow after leaving its mark.  Fox and coyote (and my dog) exhibit the same kind of behavior.

The bobcat scent station was only the second coolest thing we found during the hike.  My favorite can be seen in the two pictures below - an otter slide!  With short legs and a body shaped like a sausage, sometimes the easiest way for an otter to move (especially downhill) is to slide on its belly.

Checking out the otter slide

Slide!

There was one more stop we had to make.  Hall's Lake Natural Area has a well-known porcupine den tree.  In all the times I've ever been to Hall's Lake, I've never seen more of the porcupine than its rear end hanging out of a hole in the tree.  Last year during a hike at Hall's lake we found a second porcupine high up in an Eastern White Pine, but no such luck today.  So on to the den tree...

Normally, when I see the porcupine it's tucked up in the top of that hole.

Believe it or not, this is actually the best view that I have ever had of this porcupine.  This individual porcupine seems to be almost completely nocturnal.  It comes out of this den tree at night and travels to a nearby stand of pine trees where it feed before returning to the den to sleep away the day.

All in all, I'd declare this a very successful animal sign hike, filled with tracks, scat, slides, and porcupine butts!