Spring Walk

The weather around here has been strange as of late. It snowed again a couple of days ago. It was nice and sunny today though, so I rousted myself for a walk. It's been a few weeks since I've been on a walk in my neighborhood and there have definitely been some spring changes.

I've been seeing the indian plum (Oemleria cerasiformis) budding as I drove by it on the roads, but up close I could see the flowers starting to come out. One of my favorite observations on the walk was hearing a winter wren singing - they have such a lovely voice. I'd been hearing occasional other birds sing around the house, but this was the first winter wren song of the year for me.

I made it down to the park and basked in the sun for awhile. In my last basking spot I heard an owl call (I believe it was a barred owl). It called once more as I went to investigate/try and see it, but I was unable to spot it. Seemed odd to hear an owl in the middle of the afternoon.

Track of the Week 22

Setting: last weekend just east of Snoqualmie pass. It had snowed the previous night and snowed several inches while we were out there (this was a taken a little before we left).

I think I did a little better with these pictures than the last couple of times I took pictures in the snow, but I still haven't fully got the technique of taking decent track pictures in the snow.

We trailed one animal from the road into the woods and found this intersecting trail. The ruler at the bottom of the picture is approximately 6 inches. The trail here is more or less side-hilling along a mild/moderate incline.

1. What species?

River otter (Lontra canadensis). The size of the tracks, the loping gait (quite common to mustelids) and the slide all contribute to this identification.

2. What's going on?

The otter loped into a slide here. While otters aren't the only animals (or mustelids) that slide on the snow, they seem to be more inclined to do it than most other animals, even doing it on a level trajectory like here.

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Track of the Week 21

Setting: Just east of Snoqualmie Pass this weekend. Unfortunately my snow photography could use some practice. I think I've got the tracks showing up pretty well, but at the expense of the ruler (which is about 6 inches long).

1. What gait?

This is a classic bound. Notice the two (hind) feet at the top inline with each other (though they can be a bit offset) and the two staggered (front) feet at the bottom (though in general the fronts of a bound can be inline or even more staggered).

2. What species?

This is the classic track pattern of the lagomorph family. While the toes show up a bit here, often all that is visible is the outline of the feet (though in some substrates all you might see is the claw marks).

One of the reasons I wanted to put these tracks up for a track of the week was to show an example of how useful gaits can be in identification. Looking at individual tracks of these species can be deceptive: it is possible to confuse them with anything from a squirrel up to a cougar or a dog. But pull back and if you can see the track pattern it is almost unmistakable.

Because of the location and size we can identify this as a snowshoe hare (Lepus americanus).

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A Touch of Summer

It seems I haven't been taking pictures too much lately. Perhaps partly due to the decreasing usability of my camera lately (just got it back from the shop, so hopefully all better). Or perhaps I just haven't been getting outside too much this winter... Anyway I've been wanting to get something other than tracks up here. So I went through my pictures and grabbed these from a brief trip to Glacier last summer.

Unfortunately I didn't get to spend a lot of time there, but what time I did spend was beautiful.

Spring is starting to accelerate around here so maybe I will get some good spring stuff up soon.

Track of the Week 20

This track is a little obscure, see what you can figure out.

Setting: In the woods in the hills just east of Snoqualmie pass mid October 2008.

1. What species?

The main thing that is visible here is the heel pad. The only thing that large with a heel pad that shape in our area is a bear. It is theoretically possible for it to be a grizzly, but highly unlikely because they are quite rare in Washington. If there were clearer toes and/or claw marks I could say with even more confidence, but am still quite sure that this is a track of a large black bear (Ursus americanus).

2. Which foot?

I am less confident about this answer given the lack of detail in the track, but here goes: The track is facing toward the left side of the image. With the relatively abrupt hind edge of the track, I believe this is a front track. The left side of the heel pad appears a bit wider. It seems that generally the outside of the front heel pad tends to be wider, so I think this is the track of a front left foot.

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