The Snow Tracker

Ok .. I guess like most of the country, I’ve had enough of it now but in general, I love snow. It paints a new canvas across the normally dreary winter landscape, adding contrast and drama to even flat countryside. Better still, from a hunters perspective, that blank canvas gets painted with a host of previously indiscernible tracks and trails that allow me to play 'nature detective'. Great fun and a good reason to get out and about in the snowfields even if there isn’t much work to do with the rifle.

On most land you’ll find the prints of all the usual suspects .. rabbits, grey squirrels, woodpigeons, and corvids. If you’re lucky (and know what you’re looking for) you’ll find more unusual tracks such as fox, hare, deer and others. Spend time studying mammal tracks and you soon learn to identify the maker, simply by print and size and habitat. Bird tracks are much, much more difficult when trying to distinguish which species made them. There are several good books around on the subject of track and trail reading which are worth investing in. ‘Animal Tracks and Signs’ by Bang & Dahlstrom is excellent. So is the Helm Identification Guide ‘Tracks & Signs of the Birds of Britain & Europe’.

The advanced nature detective or hunter isn’t just interested in what creature made the print, however. I want know more. Where did it come from, where was it going, what happened en-route. There is often a wealth of drama to be found in snow trails. The trail of the stalking fox that turns to a canter, then a leap .. and the print of extended wings that show where the pheasant lifted off before the fox struck. Perhaps the snaking trail of a stoats body and tail along a warren which ends in a patch of flattened blood-spattered snow. The stoat didn’t miss last night. She got her rabbit.

 

 

The broad trail shows where she dragged it and where she fed. Yet where is the carcasse? Our little British vampire may have drawn off the rabbits blood but another set of prints shows where Old Brock, her bigger cousin, stole off with the spoil!

 

A tiny trail across a bank, barely making an impression on the snow, is that of the fragile wood mouse, notable by the dragging tail track between the paw prints. If it came to an abrupt end, you can bet the barn owl fed well. This one has run on under a stack of straw bales. The mouse survived its expedition .. for another night, at least.
You can enjoy this kind of 'crime scene investigation' in mud too, though it’s never as dramatic as the story that unfolds on a carpet of virgin snow.

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c. Ian Barnett