Animal Tracking Workshop--Otter Tracks!

Red Squirrel Tracks
Evelyn Greene, Adirondack naturalist par excellence, gathered a group of tracking fanatics for a workshop with Ellen Rathbone, an animal tracking expert, at the Newcomb VIC Center yesterday afternoon. We had an hour of instruction indoors followed by a two-hour snowshoeing tracking expedition on the VIC trails. Lots of fun people all sharing the same interests made for an exciting day. We're investigating red squirrel tracks in the photo above.

We saw oodles of mink tracks, and a few pine marten tracks, but I was most excited by the otter slide tracks we saw. Otters love sliding down slopes and banks into icy water. It's their favorite winter sport. We didn't see any otters--I'm still waiting for that big moment--but the slide marks were remarkable, as you can see from the photo below. Well, they're remarkable if you're into otters, that is!