Deer at Blue Spruce

JB's dad went to Blue Spruce today 2/27. Blue Spruce is a great place to track deer. Here is a Rhododendron bush with the bottom leave all eaten away. You can see the deer tracks around the bottom of the bush. Up close are the tracks of something that went to investigate the deer tracks. It may have been small wolf, or a coyote, but much more likely it was a dog.






Lots of deer paths there, like this one to the left.















I knew the one on the right was a fresh track, since it was snowing a bit and the tracks were not filled at all. Plus it was a little yellow in one of the tracks. A more serious tracker would have felt the urine to see if it had frozen yet.






And look! I caught up to him! What? you can't see it? Below is a close up.













Again, not a great picture, but good enough. I need to get a better camera.

Rabbit

JB tracked a rabbit this morning (Valentines Day) Here are the
prints it left on the driveway. You can see that it was walking slowly rather than hopping. With rabbits the hind feet will actually land in front of the front feet when they are hopping, and they will tend to press down and make a longer footprints. This one was moving fairly slowly. Driveways are a great place to find clear tracks after a bit of snow.

Deer trails

JB and his dad got up very early this morning (Valentines Day) and followed some game trails over behind Saddlebrook. We also saw rabbit tracks and one bird landing, but mostly deer. On the left is where the deer trail meets the road. You usually can't miss deer tracks, they are very deep and narrow.



We ended up finding all sorts of deer paths back there. The picture does not really do it justice, but this is obviously a place deer come to a lot.


Here is some deer urine.


















And here is a deer bed. We saw several of these, but this was the best picture.
















We also saw the tracks of something on four legs that trotted out into a clearing, made a circle, and then went back into the woods. Maybe a fox? The tracks were too old to be sure.

These photos by SC are tracks he followed in and around St. Bernard's cemetery at the end of Oak Street this past week. The first one shows deer tracks (we think) crossing the upper part of the cemetery. They lead to saplings and a small stream. The photo beside it is a close up of one of the tracks. The deer seemed to be travelling at a leisurely pace. We did not actually see the deer.

The third photo shows tracks of what we believe are a squirrel. They led to the base of an oak tree. There was evidence of a small amount of urine near the base of the tree among the tracks. The amount was very small which led us to believe that it was not from a dog or cat. No dog or cat prints were noted nearby.

The last photo is of juncos around a bird feeder outside our kitchen window. The birds hopped around then flew to a nearby holly tree for cover.

Soon to follow are tracks made by our pet cat around our house. She chases the birds!

Winter Birds

These are a few photos of birds taken by SC over the past few days. They show a downy woodpecker, a nuthatch, a male cardinal and a sparrow and junco at feeders around our home.

Squirrel picture

Here is a picture of a squirrel, taken by JB, 2/13/10. Again, it is not quite National Geographic quality, but that's fine. Squirrels are pretty easy to take pictures of since they are not real likely to run off so you can get a good shot even with a simple camera. This is especially true when they are eating, like this one is.

JB did not track this one, so it does not count as an animal tracked, but it does count as a picture of an animal smaller than a woodchuck. Remember that you don't have to send me the pictures you take, but you can if you want and I will post them.

Mr. Wiley

This picture does not count for the merit badge, because it was taken before Jan 1 (I think it was taken on Dec 26) and because it was not taken by a scout. It was taken by JB's mom (who is a girl and too old to earn merit badges.) Still, it's a cool picture, so I thought I would post it.

It is a coyote that sometimes comes by JB's grandfather's house. If JB manages to get a picture of it that would count as an animal larger than a woodchuck.

Junco tracks

Here are the tracks of a Slate Colored Junco, picture by JB taken on 2/10/2010. To count an animal as tracked you have to be able to tell what it was, which way it was going, and what pace it was going. JB knew it was a Junco because it is obviously a bird and there are Juncos outside our door all the time (so he is kind of guessing here, but that's ok) It was going away from our door, and it was hopping and then taking off. Note that to figure out the pace you need at least two sets of tracks. This counts as an animal tracked, and also as a picture of tracks towards the 30 points.

Here is a close-up of the wing prints

2 slate-colored juncos

This is our first picture, of 2 Slate Colored Juncos
(Also called Dark-eyed Juncos) Taken by A.B. 2/6/2010. This is not all that great a picture, but it is good enough to tell what the animal is (with birds you don't have to get close enough to tell the subspecies)

Welcome to Tracking Merit Badge

This is the blog for the Tracking merit badge group of BSA troop 11, Penn's Woods Council. Part of the merit badge is taking pictures of animals and their tracks, so I thought it might be nice to be able to post your pictures and talk about them. This first post explains why it is good to learn tracking and a few things about the merit badge. I hope that most of the blog will be your pictures and discussions about what you have found and learned.

Why Learn Tracking?

Lots of stuff in scouts has to do with learning about the outdoors. These things are worth learning because they make you a person who is at home outdoors. Many people have no idea how to tell a birch from a finch, and so they feel out of place out of doors, and don't like to go there. As a scout you may not learn how to tell all the types of sparrows and goldenrods apart, but you may learn to tell if a track is made by a cat or a dog or a skunk, and that is (for some people anyway) worth knowing.

What to do on this blog

If you take any pictures you would like to have me post here either send them to me or let me know and I will set permissions so you can post them yourself. Try to include all the information you can. For an animal picture (working towards your 30 points) tell us what you think it is and where you took it. You don't need to take pictures of the tracks you follow, but if you do send in pictures tell us what it was, where it was going, and how fast it was moving.