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Algonquin Winter Tracking
Algonquin Winter Tracking 2012
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Sunday (Day 2)
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I like to try to photograph
birds in flight. It's quite tricky, and mostly relies on
chance, coupled with a little bit of planning. Here's a
Grey Jay in flight. |
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And another one. |
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Today I spent a good part of
the day exploring the bog surrounding Hermit Creek, off the
Opeongo Road. This picture shows the typical environment I
was hiking through. Snowshoes were mandatory for this area,
as the snow was over 2 feet deep, and in many places quite
fluffy with air pockets beneath the snow. |
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A pair of Grey Jays followed
me through most of my exploration. Here are several sets of
Grey Jay wing prints. |
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Out in the open area of the
bog I came across a nice set of Red Fox tracks. In this
photo the fox is moving from the lower right towards the
upper left. And it apparently found something under the snow
to pounce on, missed, tried again, and then continued its
journey.
As with most things in tracking, you will never know 100%
for sure what happened unless you were there watching it
happen. But you can often make pretty good inferences. |
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For the most part I followed a
trail made previously by persons unknown. The reason being
is the snow was quite deep and fluffy and quite hard to
negotiate without a previously packed-down trail. If you
look at this photo carefully you will see a faint double
line coming in from the upper right and crossing the
snowshoe trail near the bottom left of the photo.
This is an otter trail, made as the animal slides along
the surface of the snow! A lot easier than snowshoeing,
that's for sure! |
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Here's another photo of that
otter trail. It may be quite hard to make out, but the otter
slides for a distance, then runs for a short distance to
build up speed again, and then slides again. And while it is
sliding it uses its rear feet to help push it along. If
you examine this photo carefully you may be able to see
where it was making its short run towards the upper left of
the photo. |
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A maze of Red Fox tracks. One
way I knew these to be Red Fox tracks for sure, was that
they led to a small black spruce tree where their scent had
been left. Fox scent is distinctive. |
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A late afternoon and evening
walk on Lake Costello finished the day. I may have found
wolf tracks here, but I was not able to be sure, as they
were old and eroded. |
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