Tracking with Alcott Smith

On Sunday, January 27, Denyce, Martha and Linda joined the Bearcamp Trackers in Tamworth for a day of tracking with Alcott Smith, a noted naturalist from Western Massachusetts. Alcott, a retired veterinarian, studied for many years with Paul Rezendez, author of Tracking and the Art of Seeing. The man has an encyclopedic knowledge of the flora and fauna of the Northeast, and we feel lucky to have spent the day with him.

The Bearcamp Trackers (named after the Bearcamp River) trained with Sue Morse four years ago, and have been out tracking fall through spring, once a month, ever since. They’re full of fun and adventure. Their mission is to raise awareness about wild animal habitat and travel corridors between the White Mountains to the north and the Ossipee range to the south.

It snowed all day, not great tracking conditions. But Alcott taught us how to identify the animals with some degree of certainty anyway. In most cases we wouldn’t have been able to write up data sheets, but we made some guesses that most of us agreed on.

We traveled through a forest that’s managed for pine—lots of pine, with a good mixture of early, mid and late succession soft- and hardwood trees. We ate lunch on the ice in a lovely wetland, with lots of coyote tracks. In all we saw five species. Coyote, porcupine, long-tail weasel, fisher and (maybe) fox. We also got a good look at a porcupine den, which was dug into a berm. No bobcat.

Alcott stressed that we need to turn on our senses when out tracking, think and feel like an animal. He's also not keen on tv's and computers, which distance us from using our senses.

Here’s a list of some of the things we learned:

• Alcott said that February 2 is a day to be celebrated. "If there is any day worth a celebration it's February 2." This date is the half-way moment between the winter solstice and the vernal equinox. Animals begin to stir, give birth, mate, etc., depending on the species. It signifies hope--a return of warmth and renewal of the species.
  
• In snowy conditions, rely primarily on track patterns, and follow the tracks for a ways. The pattern may stay consistent, or may differ – indicating an animal other than who you first thought. We found this with what we thought was a showshoe hare who turned out to be a fisher who alternated between bounding and individual footprints.
• Predator lays are round; prey lays are oval. We found a predator lay atop a large boulder on the wetland edge. What a spot for lying around waiting for prey to walk by. Judging by all of the tracks in the area, we decided it was a coyote.
• To determine which way the animal is traveling, notice the deep cave or deepest part of the print. That’s where the animal’s weight is heaviest, on the front of the track. Also, you may see a plume, in front of the print, where the animal kicks up some snow as it moves forward. This sign is especially useful when snow fills in the track.
  
• Most animals eat and depend on beaked hazelnut. You can identify this small tree (or bush?) in winter by the tiny oval catkins on the branch tips.
• Animals will use ruts in logging roads as travel corridors. They do it all the time. They also will travel along an edge of thick cover. For example, we saw porcupine prints beside and continuing under an edge of thick, young pines that were growing across the old rut.
  
• Alcott noted that this property was being managed to favor uneven-aged white pines, for ongoing, long-term logging The land had been striated to improve seed regeneration – which was phenomenal! Very clean logging too.