You might associate wildlife tracking with winter snow, but paying attention to wildlife activity is a year-round practice, and one that invites us into closer connection with our wild neighbors. With a bit of instruction and attunement to subtle signs, the trained tracker finds the summer landscape rich with stories of territorial marking, feeding, denning, and more. Mud, silt and sand serve as “track traps” that show animal footprints, and we can seek these out to reveal who has traveled past, starting with clear tracks and eventually picking up on the subtle arc of an animal’s claw pricks or just a couple of toes.

This course will introduce you to techniques and search images to attune your senses to spring and summer wildlife signs. Our focus will be on mammals, but tracking invites us into awareness of everything that influences an animal’s movements, from the layout of ridgelines and valley bottoms to the abundance of plants, invertebrates, and prey. You will head home with an understanding of what to look for, where to look, and the process of investigating wildlife signs, which can become a year-round practice of questioning and observing.

Part of NBNC’s Biodiversity University series