Out of all the animals I have tracked, the two species i enjoy the most are the mink (Mustella vison) and the fisher (Martes pennanti). Both are in the weasel family, and so are energetic, playful and curious. I have a story about each.
One clear winter's day, I decided to go out tracking, and as the snow around my house was only a foot or so deep, I decided that snowshoes would be unnecessary. I went out acroos the road the a marshy area where I had had good luck on previous excursions, and wandered for about five minutes before I found a set of mink tracks. Actually, I found a slide mark preceded by some mink tracks. The mink had slid on its belly about 25 feet, ran another foot, and slid another 30 feet on down the hill. I spent about five or ten minutes picturing this small, dark animal sliding down a hill at high speeds. it was an amusing image. I followed the mink for another three or four hours, during which time I discovered that in the woods, much of the snow actually came up to my thighs, and my legs were quickly soaked and numbed. This particular mink had been out hunting maybe a few hours before I left my house, and had examined every possible burrow along its route. There were a couple places where it seemed to dissappear into the roots of a tree on a streambank, and I fount its print climbing out of the stream twenty or thirty yards away. The thing that makes mink so fun to track is their obvious love of having a good time. I've seen gullies where a mink has spent a long time running up one side to the top, sliding back down again, running up the other side, sliding down, and so on before finally continuing on its way.
The fisher story takes place out in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. I was on a weekend winter trek, and I went out tracking for the day on Saturday. I quickly found a Fisher trail, and began to follow it. I think the fisher had been through the area at most three hours before me, possibly less, as the prints were perfectly clear and I found a marking spot where the urine puddle in the snow had not yet frozen completely. While fishers don't slide like mink and otters, they will, if the snow is deep enough, climb up a tree, and jump off, landing with a perfect, spread-eagled sitz mark - front and hind legs spread out to the sides, and tail straight behind. The one I was tracking did this frequently. I also found a spot where it dove into a brush pile, and an explosion of small rodent tracks ran in all directions, heading for safer cover. the fisher didn't take the time to go after these, but continued on up the ridge through the beech trees. After a while, I came to an area where the fisher's trail was trampled by maybe five coyote trails. , and a large area of snow was completely packed down. Lookinf around, I saw two entrances to a burrow, both somwhat dug up by the coyotes, and one with a small clump of rabbit fur near the hole. I found a little more fur scattered around the area, but ony a couple drops of blood just inside the tunnel. Further out were two amall piles of fisher scat, fresh and moist. The fisher track led away in one direction, and the coyote tracks led in another. I believe what happened was that the fisher found the rabbit hole, and killed the rabbit, eating a some but not all of the kill. It then deficated twice, and left. The coyotes came shortly after, and smelling both the rabbit and the fisher, did a little snooping around, and found the rabbi hole. They dug up what was left of the rabbit and finished it off, leaving only a few clumps of fur. I followed the coyotes for about an hour to see if they had carried any more of the rabbitt with them, but I saw no more signs of it.
