interesting sliding animal track/birdhouse?

[forestgnome]

Due to the ferocious weather forecast for Sunday night, I stayed low and inside the forest on Sunday, starting on the loop trail around the Falls Pond (at Rocky Gorge, Kancamagus) and then wandering around. This curious track is from some critter that slid a long way down a slope on it's belly. The track is a bout 4" wide, with no other marks from paws, etc. Who made these?

At the bottom of this slope it started hopping along, with rear paws landing in the holes from front paws. Due to the powder, the tracks aren't very discernable, but they look similar to squirrel. The perpendicular track high in the pic is an unrelated moose track.

Here are the paw tracks...

This box is right along the loop trail, about 5' off the ground. The hole is about 6" across. Anyone know who it's intended for?

happy trails

 

[sardog1]

Tracks are from a mink -- they'll occasionally slide like an otter and your description of the size pretty much rules out otter.

I "think" that the box is for an owl but it's too low if only 5 feet above the ground. (Maybe higher once the snow melts??) It would be interesting to know who put it up and which species they're trying to encourage. I'm sure the Forest Service and/or NH Audubon would know.

 

[J&J]

The "birdhouse" is a nesting box for wood ducks. Google wood duck nest box for more info. We've seen that very box before when we did a series of short hikes along the Kanc including the hike you just did.

 

[sardog1]

The hole diameter is large for wood duck boxes at 6" and it's pretty low to the ground as well. I agree that it's a possibility, but it's not an optimal wood duck box if that's the intent.

 

[forestgnome]

Sardog1, thanks for the mink ID. How do you know all these tracks, anyway?

I'll ask FS about the birdbox.

happy trails

 

[MonadnockVol]

Mink tracks in snow

The following website has photos of mink tracks in the snow, one of which looks very similar to yours.

http://www.geocities.com/bobarnebeck/mink.htm

 

[sardog1]

Sardog1, thanks for the mink ID. How do you know all these tracks, anyway?

I'll ask FS about the birdbox.

happy trails

From the time I was eleven years old, I've been following animal tracks and occasionally human tracks. But I would never have known what I was looking at if I didn't have Olaus Murie's seminal Peterson Field Guide To Animal Tracks. I have a paperback copy of the second edition. The third and latest edition (featured in the link) includes updating by Mark Elbroch.

Olaus Murie, his wife Mardy, and his brother Adolph are in my personal pantheon, alongside Roger Tory Peterson, Sigurd Olson, Francis Lee Jaques, and Aldo Leopold, in no particular order.

 

[Jim lombard]

There has been an otter playing in the deep snow along a pond in the woods behind my house. Their slide-tracks are much bigger than these.

It's fun to see how these animals with short legs manage to get around with so much snow.