Mallory's Journal from the Olympics

Microtus Townsendii: The humble Townsend’s vole.  This one hung from a tiny stick by its teeth.  When you see their feet like that, there’s no wonder their tracks have long skinny fingers in them.  The field we found him in was a warren of vole tunnels, trails, and sign.  Every step I took, I knew I was collapsing the roof of some small critter’s hallway or dinning room.  Take that, you midget nibblers!  Yes, relatively small, but so numerous.  What they lack in grandiosity, they make up in consequence.  I bet they transformed this field when they first arrived.  The “meadow” in the park next to my city home seems lifeless compared to this one.  It is not blessed with a single vole.  After any half hour exploring vole tunnels, you know what fields do for voles, but what exactly do voles do for fields?

Drew Middlebrooks inspects a Townend's vole (Microtus townsendii)

Cervus elaphus roosevelti:  They were eating sword fern!  They didn’t seem to care about the car stopped 10 feet away and went on crunching the vegetation without even a raised eyebrow.  The top two or three inches of each tough frond was ripped off and vanished.  Why swords and not all that tender spring green stuff?

A Roosevelt elk browses in the Hoh rainforest.

A bull elk grazing in a wetland in the Hoh rainforest.

Lepus americanus: Two snowshoe hare were sitting by the exclosure fence when we arrived.  I’ve always been startled by how their bodies are the perfect picture of hell-bent runner even when they go a short 5 feet and then stop.  How do they get so wound up in only the first few inches?  Zero to sixty to zero in half a dozen feet.  Then they execute those dainty hops that look so relaxed and floating they make me sleepy.

Snowshoe hare outside the elk exclosure.

Ursus americanus:  The black bear tracks were massive.  Almost every time I find a good way across a wild river or creek, (a downed tree, a beaver dam, or a perfect place to swim and climb up on the other side) there are the bear tracks.  Good shallow fording spots with the usual loose river rocks are not attractive to the bears.  They are the masters of crossing finesse and seem to protect their unshod feet.  I want to know if it used the human trail on the other side of the river or came to the tree-bridge bushwhacking.

Black bear tracks on a sandbar of the South Fork of the Hoh River.

Mallory Clarke crossing the South Fork of the Hoh River on a fallen log.

April Tacking Club

We were blessed with a beautiful sunny day for our April Tracking Club. We went to the Stossil Creek area and found some really interesting track and sign.

 A good number of people turned up including four children. All were prepared to clamber over fallen trees, cross creeks and bushwhack when needed.

We found trees that had been marked and bitten by bears.

 We found beaver dams and chews, aplodontia burrows, racoon tracks, cougar scrapes, kill sites, and robin's nests.

An aplodontia burrow.

A cougar scrape:

And finally a mystery for our viewers:  A kill site, can you identify the partial skulls?

December Tracking Intensive

So Dec tracking intensive class was busy. The weekend started for students with class room lectures for the first part of Saturday. Then out into the field, where there were plenty of tracks to be found under bridges in Duvall and at Chinook bend. Everyone stayed out until the light began to fade and then that evening went to the schools land for an evening class on observational principles and drawing as related to tracks.

The following day was spent at Stossel Creek. It was a beautiful riparian environment and we weren't there long before we found tons of bear tracks and sign. Some was old and some was very fresh. An exciting and beautiful place. With the low hanging mist in the morning giving way to clear sunshine in the afternoon the place took on a magical quality. We found Coho salmon swimming in the streams, returning to their spawning beds. There were signs that the bear had also found them. We came across cougar and otter sign. All in all it was a great weekend. Top left; In the woods. Top R: Hannes Wingate finds bear tracks. 2nd down L & R: Old and new bear sign. 3rd down L; bear track. 3rd down R;drawing class. Below L; drawing review. MKO

Coho in this shallow stream made easy fishing conditions for a black bear patroloing its banks. Photo by Terry Kem.

Remains of a coho salmon consumed by a black bear found by students during class. Photo by Terry Kem.

October Tracking Club: Now with Bears and Salmon!

Second Tracking Club of the season: Bears! Salmon! The sandy beaches were littered with carcasses of spent salmon spreading their nutritious rotting selves over the landscape, and live ones splashing in the shallows. The tracks of two black bears made their way through the sandy cottonwood forest down to the river’s edge. The trails made for a great tracking club.

This time we split our ranks and simultaneously conducted a tracking assessment for members of WAS’s Tracking Intensive course. This meant we explored two separate sand bars during the morning finding everything from jumping mouse tracks to beaver scat to the hefty black bear. The mustelids and the cats stayed home, but many of the other usual suspects were present. My favorite station was a dead salmon with it’s brains chewed out. Our question was “who did this?” There were large flat compressions in the grass leading away from the fish, a ragged hole in the head, and three evenly spaced slices over an inch long near it’s tail. There were signs of bears eating salmon all up and down the shore.

A black bear retrieves a salmon from a stream on the British Columbia Coast. Photo © David Moskowitz