After a freshly fallen snow is a great time to go and find some animal tracks in winter.  Here are some simple tips to help you figure out what kind of animal may have left those tracks.

Winter is a fun time of year and surprisingly can be a great time to learn what animals are in your area.  You may not see lots of animals, but you will have the chance to see all of their tracks in the snow.  Then all you need to do is learn how to identify those different tracks to know the difference between rabbit and squirrel tracks, or a deer and mouse.  Here are some basic tips to help you get a start and begin to identify animal tracks in winter.

You Should Pretend To Be A Detective

The next time you go for a walk in the snow if your opportunity to become a detective.  After all, a detective is a master and finding clues and then interpreting them to understand what happened somewhere.

Being a detective is fun, and it will also help you figure out what kinds of animals have been out and about.  You can even attempt to hypothesize what they may have been doing based on their tracks.

4 Tips To Help Identify Animal Tracks In Winter

Quick note – The best snow to find and identify tracks is in fresh snow that is not too deep, up to 3 or 4 inches.  If the snow is old or too deep identifying tracks becomes very challenging.

Look At The Pattern

When trying to identify animal tracks it is all about finding a general pattern in the tracks.  Different kind of animals leave very different types of tracks.  This means the first step is to identifying animal tracks in winter is to look at the overall pattern.

Groups Of Four Tracks

Animals that hop leave tracks that look like groups of four a space and then another group of four.  The two big spots are the back feet and the small ones are the front feet.  The animal is moving in the direction of the back feet because when they hop they put their front feet down first and then land their back feet just in front of those.

Common animals that hop are rabbits and squirrels.

Big Foot and Little Foot Near Each Other

These tracks clearly show the different feet of the animal.  You should be able to see groups of four tracks that continue without huge spaces.  It just is like a walking animal.  Look closely because for each group of four there will be two big tracks (back feet) and two small tracks (front feet).

You need to look closely at the size of each foot, the distance the tracks are apart, and how the front and back foot tracks are in relation to each other.  Some animals put their front foot next to their back foot, but others put their back foot just  behind their front foot.  Examples of these animals are raccoons and beavers.

Straight Line

Some animals tracks look like they are in a straight line.  For example a deer’s tracks move in close to straight line.  This happens because the back foot steps into the same spot in the snow the front foot was.  Animals do this in the snow to save energy.  It is easier to step into a footprint than to smash into fresh snow again.

Examples of straight line walkers are deer, and foxes.

If you are interested in learning more about animal tracks you should buy a good book.  For example, here is one good book I would recommend.