On a nearly perfect winter day, a group of 14 joined naturalist and tracker extraordinaire Alcott Smith in the Greensboro Ridge Natural Area. This winter excursion was sponsored by the Hanover Conservancy which owns this beautiful conserved area that features huge glacial erratics and vernal pools. Here we are a few minutes into the hike and almost the only time we were on a trail. Alcott feels that if you want to really experience the woods you have to get off-trail.
Our first tracks were from a red squirrel. In the photo below the squirrel is heading to the right. Its front feet tracks are behind those made by its rear feet.
Alcott found a porcupine den and inspected it with a flashlight. If the porcupine was home, it was too far in to see. You can see the dirty porcupine trail heading out the bottom right corner of the photo on the left below and below Alcott’s elbow in the photo on the right.
The den was below a huge wall of glacial erratics where Alcott found some bear scat. On the other side of the small valley was some interesting ice.
We climbed to an area where we found bobcat tracks.
We would occasionally stop to learn interesting facts about the forest.
Alcott found and identified some coyote tracks.
This set of tracks was puzzling for a while.
But following the track into a shady area revealed the clear print of a raccoon.
We found another bobcat track. Here Alcott is above a small rock overhang that the bobcat scent-marked. He said they do that under overhangs to help keep rain from washing it away.
Near the end of the walk we came across deer rubs on stripped maple. You can see older deer rubs on the trunk to the right.
Here are a few more photos I took during our three-hour adventure in the woods of Greensboro Ridge.
If you would like to see photos of iridescent clouds I took last week from Lebanon, CLICK HERE.