When winter arrives, the world gets covered in snow. Everything that was once exposed, now gets hidden away.
But not so. Not everything gets hidden. Animals review themselves through the tracks they leave behind.
You can discover what animals have traversed these paths. Not only can these tracks tell you what animals are around, but they can tell you the animals' routes and what they were doing, whether they were walking or running. Did these tracks lead somewhere - did they lead to a tree where the animal then scurried on up, did they lead to a tunnel where the animal then hid underground - or did they end abruptly, as in, did the animal succumb to another animal's meal.
The most useful way to identify animal tracks is by gait (the track pattern of the animal), and by straddle (the width between the track patterns). Both of these strategies combined will help narrow and identify the animal. The actual print itself is not a sure way of identification, as clear, well-formed prints are hard to come by.
Here are a few resources from the Canadian Wildlife Federation
to help you get started:
