Shed Hunting January 2012

Well, this isn't a picture of a shed, which is what I was hoping to come home with.  That's the shed hunting usually goes though- at least for me.  It was a nice day to be in the woods and the view from my brothers lot is always worth the drive.  This was the first time that I was up in the deer woods since last November 18th.  I'm never disappointed when I get out for a walk in the woods- there's always something to see...

This is a timber wolf track that I figure was about a day old.  There was just a touch of snow in it, just enough that it made me feel comfortable that I wasn't too close.

You may have to click on this photo to enlarge it in order to get a better perspective.  The timber wolf had the same route planned that I did- I'm just glad that the wolf was first, but I guess you never see tracks when you're the one being tracked.  I was shed hunting and the wolf seemed to be doing the same thing that I was- taking the easy trail until there was a fresh track or game trail, and then following it.  I did find one track with a touch of blood in it.  I followed it back a ways, hoping that maybe I could find a wolf-killed deer, but I never saw any other blood.  Maybe the wolf had one of his nails trimmed too short?  When I saw the blood, all I could think about was the Blood on the Tracks album by Bob Dylan, and how cool a photo of that would be- unfortunately, taking photos of animal tracks in the snow is not that easy.

It looked like there must have been two wolves traveling together at this point, their tracks almost landed on top of each other.  I saw a lot of wolf tracks today and it's hard to say how many there were all together.  I did see a ton of deer tracks too- including at least one that had to be made by a big buck.  I actually saw more deer tracks that I ever have at this time of the year in this area- my guess is that they are just more mobile due to the lack of snow this year.

Shed Hunting

My brother Tom found this shed (wedged up by the 4" stick) during an early May BWCA trip a couple of years ago.  Shed hunting seems like looking for a needle in a stack of needles.  We had each more or less stepped over this shed several times while exploring an island before Tom noticed it.  With the lack of snow this year, shed hunting isn't out of the question right now in some areas, especially near the shore of Lake Superior where there is hardly any snow.  In Duluth, yards are still mostly bare once you get down near the lake.  I'm not sure what it's like further up the shore, but I may give it a try this weekend if we don't get too much snow today.  The other day when I was driving into Duluth, I noticed a buck that had one half of his rack still attached, but I suspect that he was one of the hold-outs and that most bucks have already shed both sides.

The island where the shed was found was littered with what appeared to be at least two wolf killed deer carcasses.  The shed appeared to have been naturally shed, as it was away from everything else.  We couldn't tell if the shed antler came from this skull, but it seemed like a fit. 

Here is a link to a MN DNR article about shed hunting:

http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/volunteer/mayjun07/wooodland_crowns.html 

This photo was taken on our way up to the early May BWCA trip that resulted in finding the shed.  Most of the snow melted by the time we got to camp, but it wasn't a good feeling to start a trip with snow on the ground, especially considering that there was a fire ban at the time.  I have a feeling that we might start the open water season off with a BWCA fire ban again this year.  Knowing my luck, we'll probably make up for lost precipitation while I'm on a canoe trip!