Reddit reviews Tracking and the Art of Seeing: How to Read Animal Tracks and Sign

My two favorites, for understanding the general ideas of ecology without memorizing the nitrogen cycle, are Reading the Forested Landscape and Tracking and the Art of Seeing. Those are the books that convinced me that I wanted to study ecology in graduate school.

FWIW, I also enjoy memorizing the nitrogen cycle.

Pro tip for anyone taking pictures of tracks: If it's possible, take a picture of the entire series of tracks so we can see its gait and how it walked/trotted. With all that snow, you probably could've got a good picture with a lot of tracks visible. That is a huge clue when looking at canine tracks. A domestic dog will usually wander around most of the time and will be noticeably more clumsy and inconsistent with its gait. A wild canine will usually know where it wants to go and it will be nearly a straight line with one foot in front of the other.



Anyone that thinks they can positively ID that track from that picture is only fooling themselves.



That being said: According to the book Tracking and the Art of Seeing: How to Read Animal Tracks and Sign by Paul Rezendes, a wolf's front track will be between 3 7/8" to 5 1/2" long by 2 3/8" to 5" wide. The rear track will be 3 1/8" to 4 3/4 long by 2 1/4" to 4 1/4" wide. An eastern coyote's front track will be 2 7/8" to 3 1/2" long by 1 7/8" to 2 1/2" wide. The rear track will be 2 1/2" to 3" long by 1 5/8" to 2 1/8" wide.


According to that, a big coyote and a small wolf will come within 1/8" of overlapping in the size of their paws. And now add in that soft snow will splay out their toes and the fact that when snow melts even a little, the track expands.... and you have yourself quite the dilemma on what you're looking at.



Edit: I swear I'm not making a sales pitch, but that book was a great purchase. http://www.amazon.com/Tracking-Art-Seeing-Animal-Tracks/dp/0062735241

In addition to the fine books recommended here already (especially Wildwood Wisdom), I also liked:

Tracking and the Art of Seeing: How to Read Animal Tracks and Sign

Finding Your Way Without Map or Compass

And, oddly enough, The Journals of Lewis and Clark (free for kindle) is pretty awesome when considered from an outdoors/bushcraft point of view.

Oh man... that kind of tracking takes a looooong time to get any good at, and is honestly beyond the reach of most sane people. At least, being able to do it in a timely fashion. Not to mention, if your friend has a paintball gun and is hidden somewhere in the woods... blundering around looking for his tracks is a really good way to get your ass shot.

If you really want to get the drop on him, read up on still hunting and learn how to really keep your eyes and ears open. Keep still more often than you move, and learn how to read good cover in the landscape. Especially this: keep still, keep low, and look for movement.

Deer know what's up: if they sense danger, they freeze in place and go on high-alert. Moving things are easy to see, still things are not. Don't run around like Rambo moving from tree to tree if you plan on sneaking around at all (although honestly, if you're playing around with paintball guns it will rapidly devolve into this).

If you want to pursue tracking, read these books for starters:

• Tracking and the Art of Seeing
  
  
• Tom Brown's Nature Observation and Tracking

If you haven't already, definitely check out this book, by far the best I've seen on the topic (for animals), and I've read a bunch. This one is another great one.