How-To: Follow Wildlife Tracks

Hot spots to explore in the Central Oregon Backcountry:

• Indian Ford Creek, especially the restoration area at Black Butte Swamp and around Calliope Crossing wetlands—both just west of Sisters.
• Wychus Creek, around the pedestrian bridge in the habitat restoration area off Three Creek Road, just south of Sisters.
• Wychus Creek Preserve, a few miles downstream (northeast) of Sisters, has excellent variety.
• Sisters’ Peterson Ridge Trail System, especially the southern segments along the escarpment—I’ve even tracked a cougar here.

  

• Along the shores and sandbars of Tumalo Creek, especially around Shevlin Park heading downstream.
• The Deschutes River trail, particularly early in the mornings between Lava Island and Benham Falls, is excellent for many types of birds, coyotes, and otter.
• The more remote areas around the Cline Buttes area have many dusty trails, rock outcrops and gorgeous old junipers that house and feed plenty of rodents and deer.
• The large rock piles and outcroppings in the Oregon Badlands Wilderness area are a haven for deer, coyotes and various rodents.
• The upper and back areas of Smith Rock State Park can be great and even the river trails are good if you get there around dawn.
• Lava Butte, along the lower edge where the trees abut the rock piles, is an especially interesting area to look for pika.

Hot spots further afield in Oregon’s High Desert:

• Summer Lake Playa, at both the northern and southern ends, especially with fresh snowfall.
• Crack In the Ground and Fort Rock in the Christmas Valley area.
• Steens Mountain, follow any of the streams flowing off the mountain range into the Malheur Refuge.
• Krumbo Reservoir, and pretty much any frozen lakes and wetlands that you can get into.

Signs

Now, what to look for? Try to think like an animal here: what seems like a more-or-less direct route; what sorts of surfaces are easier to walk on; what plant cover is there to walk through; are there nesting areas, tree hollows, debris piles and hiding places on the route; is there an alternate or escape route? When looking for “tracks” I use this term broadly and include many other clues and signs such as chew marks, food stashes, lost feathers and fur, egg shells, shed skins, bones and burrows, nests or other homes.

Water sources are vital and reliable locales to investigate, and you will always find trails and trackways leading to and from water, including along sandbars and shores. This time of year, a bit of fresh snow, or even heavy frost, allows you to easily find the trails and trackways animals use. Remember that a rodent or rabbit trail need only be a few inches tall under the bushes, and even deer don’t need a full height passageway like we do. All of us critters are creatures of habit and we all like an easy, safe and familiar route, or nice shortcut.

Look for the combinations of space and shelter that define the habitats for your quarry, in biological parlance the edges or “ecotones” between one resource and another. Rock piles shelter pika, mice, voles, chipmunks and squirrels, plus the weasels that hunt the former. More open and brushy areas have rabbits, hares, deer, squirrels and chipmunks, many birds, plus their coyote, bobcat, cougar and now even wolf predators. Fields and grassy patches provide seeds for birds and a variety of small rodents, and make excellent hunting grounds for coyotes, bobcats, raptors and such. Waterways and marshes feed and shelter a large variety, including otter, beaver, mink, and waterfowl, plus bald eagles and coyotes that hunt them. Woodlands house chipmunks, squirrels, deer, elk, dozens of types of birds—and of course, all their predators.

In every case, the earlier the better, the fresher the snow the better, and the farther you are from the crowds the better. That said, you don’t always have to travel: I’ve tracked deer, raccoon, coyote, bobcat, several rodent varieties, many birds and a cougar on the sidewalk right outside my front door!

– Scott R. Bowler is a retired science educator and a volunteer with Oregon Natural Desert Association, a nonprofit organization that protects and restores Oregon’s high desert public lands and waters. Read more of his work at onda.org/author/scott-bowler.