I see more invisible wildlife while snowshoeing than I see any other season of the year.

Post your shots of invisible wildlife or comment on what you have seen.

Every track, every sign tells a tale. See if you can figure out what happened.

[Tom Lusk]

Deciphering tracks and other sign, especially in the snow, has been a lifelong passion of mine. I used to take my daughters on long hikes and have them interpret what species made the tracks, what scene had been carried out, etc.

Glad to see I'm not the only one.

What birds do you have that produced that one shot? Some kind of grouse?

[craftsmansky]

i did an exhibit at the natural history musuem in pocatello back in the eighties on tracks and scat. lots of fun making casts of tracks and collecting various scat. did some nice mural shots of beaver ponds in the buckskin area east of town. i was amazed at the popularity of the exhibit. kids loved the "ewww" factor of the scat, but adults were really intrigued by the biology.

[clarenceclose]

Deciphering tracks and other sign, especially in the snow, has been a lifelong passion of mine. I used to take my daughters on long hikes and have them interpret what species made the tracks, what scene had been carried out, etc.

Glad to see I'm not the only one.

What birds do you have that produced that one shot? Some kind of grouse?

Even as a kid I was always facinated by the story in tracks. I suspect I know the first four but the last one really threw me as I had never seen these size and kind of tracks.
Something came from beneath the snow and made X prints about 3/4" across and 1 1/2"-2" apart. Cannot wrap my mind around the species as the weather is too cold for a mole or gopher and they are fairly dense creatures and would have sunk in further. Well I love a good challange.

As to the bird, I suspect a jay due to the wing span by have not seen nor heard any around.
We do have magpies and the down thrust of the wing would have made the smaller impression but there is no tail contact with the snow.

[clarenceclose]

i did an exhibit at the natural history musuem in pocatello back in the eighties on tracks and scat. lots of fun making casts of tracks and collecting various scat. did some nice mural shots of beaver ponds in the buckskin area east of town. i was amazed at the popularity of the exhibit. kids loved the "ewww" factor of the scat, but adults were really intrigued by the biology.

Am curious about the mural shots. I have been out along Buckskin and the willow growth makes it difficult to capture much. Did you leave the road and cross into more open areas?
What time of year?
Thanks

[craftsmansky]

i walked quite a bit up a side creek to get to the beaver dam and pond. thinking it was early spring. it was a fun walk carrying 4x5 camera, tripod, bag of film holders, and 35mm stuff. i enlarged it to about 4 ft by 5 ft. blended into a muddy bank recreated in the foreground, with tracks, gnawed stumps and full mount beaver.

a biologist at ISU told me where the pond was or i never would have found it.

i also shot a mural of the grays lake refuge when we did an exhibit on the whooping crane breeding program there. went out to the middle of the marsh on an airboat and took pictures of the hill in the center of the refuge. this was with an Olympus OM-1 and i think kodachrome. the enlargement was 8'x8'!!! at the viewing distance of about 10-12 feet, it was amazingly sharp.