Activity Sheet - Tracking Tracks
Many of our common wild animals are very difficult to see, but they leave signs of their presence. You can be a wildlife detective, reading the signs to see what animals have visited.
Things to look out for
· Foot prints left in the mud or snow
· Feathers and fur
· Nibbled nuts or fir cones
· The remains of a meal, either plant or animal
· Pellets and droppings
· Burrows and nests.
Where to look for tracks and signs. First of all look for animal paths, they are easy to find. On these you may find tracks and droppings. Look around the places where you know animals live such as Badger setts, foxholes and rabbit burrows around these place you may find tracks and droppings. Good places to find tracks are soft earth, mud and river banks. The best time of all to look for tracks is after a snowfall. Droppings also show up well in the snow.
Fox |
Foxes often leave scent marks - this is how they leave messages for other foxes. You can easily smell this - a rather musky scent.
Fox droppings are similar to dog, but very smelly and with a thin twist at one end. When foxes use the same path regularly they create a visible track - look for these passing through hedges. |
Badger |
Badgers often use regular pathways - these are clearly visible, and wider than those made by foxes. If the path goes under a barbed wire fence lookfor tufts of hair caught in the wire. Badger hair is course and has three bands of colour from root to tip.
Badgers leave their droppings in specially dug pits about 10cm deep, called latrines.This is a way of marking out their territory. |
Rabbit |
Rabbits leave lots of small round droppings, about 1cm across. Look closely and you can see these are made up of shreds of grass - grass is very difficult to digest.
Rabbit burrows, holes up to 15cm across, are usually easy to find nearby. |
Brown Hare  |
Hares will bite off the ends of shoots on young trees. They do not always eat the shoots - they can be found lying on the ground.
Hares rest in the open, in a small patch of flattened grass called a "form". If you are lucky you may find a hare's form. |
Hedgehog |
Hedgehogs leave small dark coloured droppings, 3-4cm long with a pointed end. They are often made up of insects, fur, feathers, bones or seeds. Hedgehogs enjoy a very varied diet. |
Grey Squirrel  |
When squirrels feed on hazel nuts they leave the bite the nut in half or leave the shell split into pieces. In autumn squirrels bury nuts and acorns, then dig them up to eat in winter and spring. Look for small holes in the lawn, sometimes with the acorn skin nearby. |
Water Vole  |
Water voles make burrows close to the waters edge - look for a hole 6-8cm wide. As they move through dense vegetation they create tunnels, or runs. These are easily found in bankside vegetation. Water voles feed on vegetation and often leave piles of cut grass or sedge. Look for stems cut at a 45 degree angle.
The droppings are oval, green when fresh, darker when older, left in piles in the runs. |
Other things to look for when out in the Countryside.
Lots of white droppings under a branch or fence post. This is a favourite perch of a big bird, perhaps a buzzard or an owl. Predatory birds regularly regurgitate the undigestable remains of their prey - bones and fur. Look for a rounded pellet of prey remains - it can tell you what the bird has been eating.
Squirrel dreys. Squirrels build a nest, called a drey, of sticks and twigs - it can look very untidy. The drey is usually situated in a fork by the main trunk. A nest further out in the branchs is that of a bird.
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