Trip a blizzard of discoveries But search for lynx tracks futile

The day of the blizzard during the second week of February, a group of Maine Auduboners convened on Twin Pine Camps on Millinocket Lake to look for lynx tracks and other animal tracks of the northern forest.

Their leaders were Mark McCollough, endangered species biologist of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Laura Sebastinella, expert tracker from Tanglewood, University of Maine Extension Service. Maine Audubon recommended waiting until the blizzard ended for the drive north, but participants thought otherwise – they didn’t want to miss a minute of this snowy adventure.

It started with an evening presentation by McCullough about the lynx, its status in Maine and new information from the latest research. Sebastinella talked about tracking lynx, showing casts of its tracks and a dried sample of its scat in a plastic bag. Scat sometimes punctuates the story told by an animal’s tracks.

The next morning dawned bright and clear, with 21/2 feet of brand new fluffy snow on the ground. Driving farther north into lynx country, leaders spotted some footprints from the car and the caravan stopped to inspect.

The first set of tracks showed a linear pattern, the furry, blurry look of a footprint, four toes, the presence of claws, and the clincher, a “skid bar” on the hindmost, largest pad of the foot. Sebastinella showed how all signs, carefully considered together, indicated the presence of a fox. Another clincher – the fox had “marked its territory” as dogs do, with urine. But what a smell!

Sebastinella suggested sniffing it. One after another, everybody waded into the deep snow of the roadside ditch, scooched down low, and took a close-up sniff. “It’s a ritual, like kissing the Blarney Stone,” said tracker Peter Mendella. “Whoa!” … “Wow!” … “Strong!” … “Like a Skunk” rang out as each tracker took a turn.

The next stop featured several ravens taking off and an eagle circling overhead. On the road was a dead snowshoe hare with its head missing and its innards lying nearby in the road. There were many tracks. What happened here? It took awhile to sort out all the clues in the roadside snow.

Some of the tracks were similar to, but larger and farther apart than fox tracks. Coyote! There were deer tracks on the roadside but no hare tracks. Then tracker Peter Flanagan noted a clue that broke the code. He pointed to a small shallow depression and said, “That’s where the hare died; its warm body lay awhile and melted the ice on the road.”

Everybody eagerly joined in the discussion and settled on this scenario: The rabbit was killed by a vehicle before the snow stopped, hence no hare tracks. The ravens were the first arrivals, and field-dressed the carcass, hence the intestines. The eagle and the coyote heard or saw the raven ruckus and wanted to join the banquet. Then we arrived and broke up the party.

But what did the deer have to do with it?

We went back to study the tracks – but they were obliterated by our own footprints as we studied the coyote tracks!

And how did the hare lose its head?

Either by the coyote, or a combination of tire and pecking ravens. The passing vehicles had obliterated many clues, and that could not be determined.

Another highlight was a trough in the snow that showed where an otter had bounded and tunneled through the snow along a frozen stream from a big culvert to a hole in the ice. Tracker Connor O’Neil, age l1, bounded down a steep hill to the culvert. “What did the otter do down there?” he was asked as he scrambled back up. “Just messed around. I could even see the toeprints in its tracks!” was the answer.

Trackers gained confidence, empowered and coached by their leaders.

The last set of tracks was a real mystery. Neither leader had ever seen tracks like these, only showing a belly-trough and leg-holes but no decipherable tracks at the bottom. The 21/2-foot deep, light fluffy snow had filled them in. Some animal had struggled to walk along. Coyote? A mother deer with young following?

Then some scat was found. It was carefully examined and pronounced “segmented.” And then “Yecch! It smells more like a kitty litter box than a dog mess!” “Hmmm … those are good clues,” said Sebastinella. “Those are characteristic of bobcat scat.” More measurements were taken. Books were consulted. At last we were all satisfied that these were indeed bobcat tracks, at its northern limits and struggling in the deep snow.

Did we ever find lynx tracks? No, we did not. But the beautiful snowstorm, the subsequent tracking, the camaraderie and the excellent teaching made it not matter.

Judy Kellogg Markowsky is the director of Fields Pond Audubon Center in Orrington. She can be reached at fieldspond@maineaudubon.org or call 989-2591 for information about other Audubon field trips and classes.