Tracks of prey species abundant after snow

This is a tale of nature, red in tooth and claw. It is a tale of violence and death, or a tale of a life-sustaining dinner, depending on your point of view.

I went with Joni Dunn of Bangor Photo to wrap up a mammal list for a Bangor Land Trust preserve. We hoped to find tracks of predators missed on previous tracking expeditions.

It had been 10 days since the Valentine’s Day snow. That’s plenty of time for the snow to get marked up with animal tracks. On the other hand, the sun had been getting stronger and stronger, distorting and melting many tracks.

Still, tracks of prey species were abundant – mice, squirrels, ruffed grouse and snowshoe hares. And the predators were out, looking for lunch. We saw none of these animals, but their activities were recorded in the snow.

The small, dainty, oval and symmetrical footprints of a fox went in a straight line along a field and into the woods.

Someone had brought a dog along into the woods. The well-fed dog bounded back and forth across the trail. Sometimes its heft broke through the crust, and sometimes it dug in the snow just for fun.

A coyote’s footprints were similar, but the coyote did not break through the crust, due to its leanness. The trail of footprints was straight and showed that the coyote could not afford to waste energy playing – not in winter. Life is serious; wild animals live on the edge.

The next footprints were not oval as those in the dog family. We followed the tracks intently. Each footprint was round. No claws showed; the rear pad was notched in front. Bobcat!

We looked into the dense woods – blood on the snow. And we were not the only ones who had noted the happenings. A raven had noted the action -its footprints showed where it landed on the trail and walked into the woods toward the bloody area.

We snow-shoed in to investigate and found an area one yard across, stained with pink. In the pink snow were several clumps of soft hair. Many long hairs were white; the undercoat consisted of shorter hairs of light brown and gray – snowshoe hare.

We followed the trail of blood and footprints to where the hare had been killed. The blood was in well-demarcated, red splotches. The raven had heard the rabbit’s death scream and flew in, with hopes of a few scraps.

We snow-shoed back, sobered by the events shown so clearly on the snow. It was indeed a tale of violence and death, or a tale of a life-sustaining dinner. It depends on your point of view. Perhaps it was also a tale of a raven’s snatched scrap, or a tale of its disappointment; we couldn’t tell which.

For information on Fields Pond Audubon Center, call 989-2591.