Squirrel Tracks

When it snowed last year I began to learn a lot about different animal tracks. I followed as many as I could, and I tried to see if I could find the animal that was making the tracks. I knew the animals for many of them, but I never caught up to them. One of the types of tracks I never considered though were my little friends the squirrels.

With that thought, I decided that this year I was going to make an effort to find the tracks of that mighty forest creature, the squirrel. The first thing I realized was that it wasn't nearly as difficult as I thought it would be to find squirrel tracks. In fact, it was one of the easiest things I've ever done.

This top picture shows some squirrel prints on a fallen log. I like these because they came out so clear. The squirrel must have stopped right there. The really love standing on logs like this.

Here's a closeup of some squirrel tracks from when the squirrel was trotting through the forest. They look much different than the ones from the first picture, don't they? That's because this time the squirrel was moving. Many animal tracks look different when they're moving than when they just stand still.

Something interesting here is that squirrel tracks look very similar to rabbit tracks. That would make sense because they're both furry little rodents. In this forest the tracks are almost certainly from squirrels, although I've seen a few rabbits here as well.

I mentioned earlier that squirrels really like standing on fallen logs. If you really want to see some squirrel tracks just look at a fallen log with snow on it. You'll almost certainly find tracks on it, and they'll probably be made by a squirrel. Squirrels use fallen logs as little squirrel highways for some reason. It must be easier for them to travel this way.

The squirrel tracks in this picture were running right along the side of the human hiking trail. The squirrel traveled along the trail for a ways, then it jumped up on the wooden barrier to move off into the forest.

This park happens to be absolutely full of squirrels, and the tracks reveal that the squirrels go everywhere. I didn't find a place where there weren't squirrel tracks. Just take a look at the next picture.

This is the viewing platform at the end of the lake. You can see squirrel tracks running along the edge of the guard rail. I followed them as far as I could. They ran up to the little platform and through the fence. They then ran along the edge of the dam as far as I could see. They finally disappeared around a corner where I couldn't go.

Following these squirrel tracks was fun for me, but there were some even stranger tracks that I found a little later. I'll tell you all about that in my Christmas Eve post. I hope you like it. Christmas Eve is the special day for my whole extended family because that's when we all get together. Then on Christmas each individual family celebrates Christmas on their own.

I'll be back tomorrow to show you those other mysterious tracks I found.