Questions & Actions: The Art of Tracking
“You often talk about how being a better naturalist can make someone a better photographer. Can you give me an example of this? I love the idea of learning more about nature and how this will help me be better at wildlife photographer, but I don’t see the connection.” – John Graves, MN
Understanding how a bobcat uses the landscape within their territory will allow you to narrow down your search for them. In the winter, across the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, bobcats are often found hiding in logjams along unfrozen rivers to ambush unsuspecting prey such as ducks, geese, swans, and muskrats as they swim past.
First, let me just say that I completely understand the confusion. When we are taught to think of wildlife photography in terms of lenses, cameras, f/stops, and autofocus systems, the importance of being a first-rate naturalist or outdoorsperson can be lost. But if you can’t find the wildlife, if you can’t approach the wildlife, if you can’t put them at ease with your presence and spend the time with the wildlife, then how are you going to be a wildlife photographer?
A couple years ago, I quietly listened to several photographers standing on the side of a snow-covered road, debate what they were looking at by their feet. One of them was on all fours. The other two hovered above him. And from my vantage, it was obvious to me they were trying to decipher tracks in the snow.
This is something I love about winter – the art of tracking. As a wildlife photographer, tracking animals is a big part of what I do. Normally this is difficult work, except for in sand. You’re more often than not left with little more than a single impression in the dirt or mud. But come winter, come snow, everything changes. And the entire landscape transforms into a blank canvas that showcases the steps of each and every creature that traverses it.
Hands down, finding a set of tracks, identifying them correctly, and then actually using those tracks to find the animal you are looking for is one of the most rewarding things you will ever experience in wildlife photography.
Normally the conversations I hear at Yellowstone pull-offs this time of year revolve around gear. “What are you shooting with?” Or, “have you hears about the new. . .”
Honestly, I avoid these conversations like the plague when I’m on my own time.
Tracking animals, however?
I’m like a moth to a flame.
Walking over to the tracks, I joined the fray – albeit with my mask on (which has also been useful for concealing my identity in the field at times!).
Photographer one: “It’s a coyote”
Photographer two: “No, I don’t think so. It’s definitely a fox.”
Photographer three: “Who cares? It ‘aint’ here now.”
Given that 95% of all my bobcat photographs in the winter came about from tracking the cats in the snow first, my curiosity was piqued.
When it comes to identifying tracks in the snow here, a massive 6-inch-long canine track is obviously going to be a wolf. Or a path 2 feet wide and all plowed up like a heard of wildlife photographers were moving through snow in a straight line is almost always going to be bison – unless it was a herd of photographers, of course.
But what of the smaller stuff?
Bobcats, coyotes, and foxes all have similar-ish sized feet. Emphasis on the ish. On dry ground, there is a huge difference in size to the trained eye. In the snow, all that goes out the window pretty quickly. This leaves the subject up for debate if all you are doing is going on the size of the track to assume what it is.
Looking over their shoulder, I could instantly eliminate the possibility of the animal being a canine.
Normally, when analyzing a track in the snow, I walk the line of track for a moment to give a series of steps a once over. This is important. Snow is soft stuff. You don’t normally get a perfectly formed track in the snow and it quite often takes a few steps to be sure.
With this track, however, it was unmistakably a bobcat. The entire print was perfectly formed. The toes. The pads. Everything. And all thanks to the fact that it fell on packed snow instead of in the deep stuff.
“It’s a bobcat,” I chimed in. “Most likely a male.”
Notices how that with the coyote track, an X can, more or less, be drawn between the toes and heal pad. With the bobcat track, this is not possible because of how the outer toes are placed. Also note the difference in shape of then heal pad between the two tracks as well. Felines always have the indention at the top of the pad whereas canines always come to a peak.
And with that, I got three very odd looks.
In retrospect, if I had left it at “bobcat,” no one would have thought I was crazy. But given the size of the track and the blunt nature to the end of the toes, it definitely suggested a tom and not a female.
This is the power of learning to read tracks and sign. The subtle clues in nature often speak volumes if only you know how to interpret them. This track is, of course, a perfect example of that. Identifying the difference between a male and a female bobcat’s track can be important this time of year. Males roam far and wide come February in search of ladies. It’s mating season.
Male bobcats typically have an average range of about 30 square miles. This is a huge chunk of landscape. Put another way, 30 square miles is equal to about 19,200 acres. For this reason, identifying a set of male bobcat tracks means very little to me unless those tracks were laid down within the last couple hours and I think I can follow them.
Females, on the other hand, have a much smaller territory. For a female, who are technically called “queens,” their range is about 5 square miles or 3,200 acres. While this is still a very large area, the presence of a queens’ tracks is something to take note of. While 5 square miles is a lot of ground to cover, as is the case with most animals, if you understand how a species utilizes their habitat you can narrow your search down to about 20% of that range.
For instance, in Yellowstone during the winter months, when snow begins to pile high, bobcats move to areas with shallower snow depth and easier access to food. The Canadian lynx is a species of the deep snow. Bobcats are not. With the presence of geothermally heated rivers in the ecosystem, bobcats make their way to these areas because the warmth of the water keeps the snow depth shallower, and the water remains unfrozen all year. Unfrozen water means the presence of ducks, geese, swans, and muskrats – all of which are the primary food source for bobcats here in the winter. Once an appropriate river is located for overwintering by a bobcat here, they will then begin using logjams along the banks of the river as ambush points. Bobcats will tuck themselves inside of a logjam only to sit motionless for hours on end waiting for an unsuspecting bird or muskrat to come floating by within pouncing range.
Understanding this part of their natural history means I can narrow my search down to the 1 or 2 ice free rivers or creeks in a queen bobcat’s territory and begin searching for tracks around logjams – especially after recent snowfall, which means the tracks will be fresher. Once I spot those tracks, I begin studying the logjams and any other potential ambush point I can find with a pair of 10x42 field glasses (binoculars).
99% of all my bobcat photographs from the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem have been created this way.
Naturally, I explained all of this to the other photographers. And naturally, a grocery list of questions followed.
When it comes to identifying the tracks of these small to medium sized meso-predators (smallish predators that are also prey to other animals), care needs to be taken when studying the tracks. Identifying a coyote versus a bobcat track sounds as simple as looking to see if there are “nails” in the print, for instance. Cats retract their claws when they walk. Coyotes don’t have this ability. But this isn’t always the case.
In soft stuff, like snow, cats will sometimes partially extend their claws for traction. On the other hand, sometimes a coyote’s nails have been worn back so much that they don’t always register in the snow given the tiny pin prick like imprints their nails usually make anyways. Complicating things further (outside of Yellowstone) is the fact that grey foxes branched off the canine line very soon after canines and felines diverged, and therefore have cat like prints and can retract their claws like a cat (they also have elliptical shaped pupils like a cat). And then there’s the American marten, whose track is also VERY similar to a small bobcat at times but WITH claws.
You can probably start to get an idea of why I normally like to walk a set of tracks first before making a judgement call.
So, if not for claws, exactly how do you differentiate between a cat and a coyote?
Following a fresh set of tracks laid down by a female bobcat led me into a dense stand of lodgepole pines where I found her bedded down in a treewell.
In the accompanying illustrations you can see the differences between the two. And the classic trait is whether or not you can draw and X between the toes.
With canines, the toes are placed further out from the heal pad (also known as the plantar pad). This allows you to be able to draw and X across the middle of the foot without intersecting toes or heel.
With felines, things are different. Instead, you can only make a C shape around the heal pad.
But there is even more.
The shape of the plantar pad is completely different between the two species. If you look at the front portion of this pad you will notice that a canine (wolves, coyotes, dogs, foxes) all come to a point. With anything feline, there is an indention at the front of the pad – sort of like a child’s drawing of a volcano.
The plantar pad is a big tell in this regard, and if you can easily make it out, then you can very quickly ID the track. But easy and tracking are not words often found in the same sentence. So, that’s why we also look for the X vs C in the middle of the track as well.
All of this begins to make a lot more sense when you are standing there looking down at a track. And more than a few trackers carry a small piece of red string with them so they can better see the X versus C when it comes to canines and cats. And as I explained in my feature article in the Winter issue of PhotoWILD Magazine about finding and photographing black bears, we use a C versus a straight line across the tracks of bears to determine if they are black or grizzly.
Unfortunately, I never saw the bobcat that made the tracks. I searched every square inch of the area I could see with my binoculars. I came back through the next day, parked, and studied the landscape some more. And within a ¼ miles stretch, I was unable to identify another set of tracks that were even remotely bobcat like.
Of course, this was my initial assumption. Given the shape of the toes and size of the track, I guessed it was a male and was just passing through.
But even though I never found this bobcat, and even though I spent hours searching, I was still rewarded by the fact that my guess had been correct. And let’s face it, there are far worse ways to spend a couple days than being outside, studying the landscape, trying to piece together the mental puzzle of it all, and learning more about the nuances and secrets of the natural world around me.
Hopefully, this helps explain why being a better naturalist will make you a better photographer. As I mentioned at the the beginning of this, if you can’t find the wildlife you will have a very difficult time being a wildlife photographer.