Tracks in the snow on my patio.

[Tom Montgomery]

.
Rabbit?

Or something else?

[Tom Montgomery]

.
I have yet to see a rabbit in my backyard. But I would not be surprised if they are underneath my shed on the NE corner and the big fir tree on the SE corner.

[Chip-skiff]

Hard to judge size. From the paired footfalls, it might be a weasel or other mustelid. Or a big squirrel.

We had a nocturnal visit from a small bobcat that jumped up on the table where I keep the grill (the dog went berserk). Also some yearling moose tracks along the rail fence.

Here's a one-page guide that you can print and tape up by the window.

[Art Haberland]

we have rabbits all over, no snow yet, so I can't help you with the tracks.

[Chip-skiff]

Rabbit tracks tend to form Y shapes, with the two front feet staggered and the back feet coming down together. We have lots of cottontails here. I haven't gone out on the Plains looking for the tracks of jackrabbits or snowshoe hares, but I'd guess they're similar, only larger.

When I was a range rider and wilderness ranger I did a lot of tracking. That way, I knew what was going on and and who was where, even when I didn't observe it at the time. I did conclude that sheep ranchers are terrible liars. They'll tell you that coyotes (or lightning) scattered a herd over the boundary, when you just saw that the sheep were trailing slow, with the herder and camptender behind on horseback: a calculated trespass.

My stock reply: Did the coyotes set up the camp, too?

[skuthorp]

Rabbits are an introduced feral pest here.

Some clown with pretentions as a "gentleman" introduced them for hunting back in the early 1800's. As a result by the 1930's…..


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8hDDVuAm3A

[John Smith]

When I was young, I had a 17" model of an Arkansas Traveler outboard boat. We put an .049 gas engine with an airplane prop on it.

One afternoon my friend an I decided to see if it would run on the snow. It did, all over his backyard till we got cold.

Is mom, later, saw the odd tracks it made and was a bit unnerved until she learned it was the model.

[David W Pratt]

I would say squirrel. Rabbit tracks, as I recall, have separate and distinct imprints from the front feet

[Hugh Conway]

Squirrel

[Rich Jones]

I'm going with squirrel also.
I've never had rabbit tracks on my deck.
Bear tracks on the deck, yes, but not rabbits.
I'll occasionally see rabbit tracks in the snow out in the woods, but have only seen one rabbit in the nine
years that we've lived here full time.

[Todd Bradshaw]

Be careful, just in case it is a rabbit and not a squirrel.

[Chris Woodward]

I would also venture squirrel. A rabbit hits with its hind feet forward of its front feet so the bigger print would be ahead of the smaller ones.

[Breakaway]

Rabbits are an introduced feral pest here.

Some clown with pretentions as a "gentleman" introduced them for hunting back in the early 1800's. As a result by the 1930's…..


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8hDDVuAm3A

Last edited by skuthorp; 12-02-2020 at 02:48 PM.

Oh, c'mon, Sku! Those are baby 'roos, yes?


Kevin

[Dave Hadfield]

Squirrel. Rabbit tracks don’t have that symmetry.

[Dave Gray]

6333582[/URL]]Squirrel. Rabbit tracks don’t have that symmetry.

Begorra, them’s tracks from the little people