What’s going on out on the land?
On the Opossum Trail
For the past few years I have been tracking the Scout Camp beside where I work. Lately with the students, we trailed an Opossum around the area.
This time I went back alone in hopes of learning more about the Virginia Opossum and see what they were up to. I wasn’t let down.
In Search of Fisher Tracks, Tracking Journal, 2022.01.11
I was out on the ice real close to where I’d fallen through last year, looking for signs of a possible Fiser (Pekania pennanti) that my friend had said she may have seen a couple of hours before. She had told me about the possible Fisher earlier in the day when were were skating on the frozen river closer to my house. As soon as I was done with the skates, I put on my big boots and went upstream in search of this maybe Mustelid.
Eastern Cottontail Rabbit killsite on the way to work
The blood was still bright and vibrant when I took the photo. That's what first caught my eye while walking by, the living red against the white. Tufts of brindly hair strewn about the edge of the Staghorn Sumac grove, with lots of Rabbit pellets punctuating the bounding tracks through the snow.
I couldn't make it all out with the short time I had but I have a feeling the Coyotes were coming from the Southeast, making their way Northwest. More wild spaces Eastwise, and the city was behind me to the West. The Coyote tracks are often headed Westwise, flowing with the river.