Tracking In The Snow

My “Wildlife Tracking” field trip to Blydenburg County Park, hosted by the Huntington-Oyster Bay chapter of the Audubon Society and scheduled for Saturday morning, had to be postponed until the following morning because of our first major winter snowfall. We rendezvoused on Sunday morning on the southeast shore of the park’s centerpiece—Stump Pond (aka New Mill Pond)—to scan the ice and open water for waterfowl. Canada geese and ring-billed gulls comprised 90 percent of the stationary ice-pack community, while hooded mergansers, black duck and American coots actively fed in the open sections of the pond.

Six inches of snow carpeted the ground, creating perfect conditions for tracking. And any tracks we noted would be less than 18 hours old. My main interest was to locate the whereabouts of the river otters... more