It's been raining a lot in the last couple of weeks; my weather center reports more than 9 inches of rain in the last 14 days. When that much rain happens I walk the perimeter fence and river bank to see if anythings changed, and I was out with the dogs doing that when I spotted these tracks.
 |
| Mystery tracks |
The animal is pretty small; the stride is about 6" long. These were the clearest tracks, and they don't show any webbing between the toes -- I thought at first it was a river otter, but now I'm leaning towards raccoon. The tracks are always side-by-side, and they were on the edge of the field parallel to a small ditch.
The animal wasn't trying to hide; it was moving along about 10' away from any cover, so i'm going to guess it was at night. During daylight the animals will tend to actually travel in the brushline.
 |
| coyote print for comparison found on same walk |
I've never actually seen a possum track, and that's my second choice.
Pretty sure it's not a possum, they have a long thumb that hangs way out to the side. Definitely not a raccoon, the heel on the back foot isn't nearly pointy enough and the front foot looks even more like a hand.
ReplyDeleteThey really look a lot like woodchuck tracks, but I'm not sure you'd have those in your area.
I thought raccoon immediately. It looks like you only have pictures of the front feet prints. The back feet are more telling in identification.
ReplyDelete