Hi everyone 
I’m trying to get more into tracks and to identify them better but I should do it wrong cause they end up push back to very broad categories like « mammals » or « carnivore ». I try when possible to include scale and a sens of deepness, when there is a série of them I try to have 1 pic of the whole lot and 1 of one footprint.
What are your tips and tricks ?
I’m very new to this, I may miss obvious steps ^^’
I’m sure I can improve on this as I learn how to do track observations more, but I take a close up of one track with my hand in the photo for scale. I suppose I should try to carry a small tape measure along with me hiking, as this would be better for measurements. Then I take another photo of a series of tracks to show stride and gait, often with one of my shoes in the photo for scale. I think it would help to give brief descriptions of characters, and what you think it is based on habitat. The track in a wider habitat photo would also be good. That might be the bare minimum, I’m sure there is more we could include but this is a start.
I found what I think was a Western banded gecko trackway in a sand dune, and in addition to the above photos, I took a photo of a “behavioral” track where it appeared the gecko tackled and caught a prey item, with a struggle marked in the sand. If there is a beetle or rodent trackway emerging from a burrow, take a photo of the burrow. Any scat along the way?–take a photo of that.
I see on iNaturalist some of your recent observations are in Quebec. I found this project that you may want to include your observations in, so that they can get more attention.
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/animal-tracks-signs-canada
Good idea thanks !
For tracks, especially ones in snow or other light colored substrate it’s a good idea to get one top down and one from the side.
If it’s darker and you have a flashlight illuminate the track from the side to give raking light. Those side and raking light shots help establish depth and can show more detail, especially the raking light ones.
If there is more than one print a shot of the line of them to show context can be useful.. for example the tracks of a mink and a some other weasels can be difficult to tell apart, but if the tracks go into the water (eg. https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/40743808) this can be a good clue that it’s a mink. Environmental context is often very useful.
On the whole it sounds like you’re doing the right things.
Sometimes I’ll carry a card with a small ruler on one side and toss that on the ground next to somethin where scale is important, but that varies a lot.
I have several track obs that haven’t been identified beyond mammal. All of the following are at one site which I was surveying for construction of a house (I also found an ant queen on the foundation blocks and a bee on the floorboards).
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/252126907 bear, with longtape for scale
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/258356555
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/258356556
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/258356557
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/259847046
Sometimes tracks in fresh, deep snow are simply unidentifiable, especially if there’s only one photo of a single posthole in the snow. Identifiability can be helped by also photographing the line of tracks and using a ruler or tape measure to show the length of stride and the straddle (lateral distance between prints). The substrate makes a big difference, needless to say - thin snow on top of a harder base or wet snow or mud will often record pad and claw details, whereas dry snow may not.
Another suggestion… don’t put too much faith in iNat CV - it still seems to be suggesting “fisher” for almost any vague print in deep snow (and even for better defined ones, whether it makes much sense or not).
Also, if you’re not already doing it, it probably helps to annotate your observations (“Evidence of presence: Track”) so that track experts can find your postings more readily and identify them if it’s possible.
I’m trying to annotate ^^’ but I don’T find it on my phone and have to be back home to complete it.
thanks for our comments on my observations btw 
I’ve had a measuring tape today, hope it’ll help. I can’t do anything for the snow, i’l have to wait April or may to see the ground again …
As others said, size is one of the most important after shapes. multiple angles and sequence of photos across track (its no use focusing dozen photos on only one print while other prints could offer more information)
in addition to those, reading the story in field itself is always a good and helpful detective work. It doesn’t have to end at print shape and size.
Journaling things like - Why did the gait change suddenly at some point in track and what other changes you can observe? Noting anything that is not apparent in ruler photo - like say “stride length increased from X to Y over Z meters”?, what is the herd size if any within tracks? what was the kind of snow on that day and temperature - how are your fresh tracks faring in that snow now at time of photo? habitat nearby and trends of any other species that you noticed in week around that area? any odour or scat or bark scratch characters nearby and could be associated? any bite marks on plants, fruits, leaves around?
although each of those pieces of evidence can be unconnected and different species, but when there is one strong hypothesis these other points if also connected can add on top to make one confident in that direction.
getting hold of local field guide from library or around can always help, you can go through once and find other broader things and learn to key yourself better with those points of corroborating evidence in guide. as any field guide isnt rigid and having any notes could make one infer what could have caused such changes in your observation too.
I heard Elbroch book is best for America and Olsen for Europe.
Kim Cabrera has a group on FB called “Animals Don’t Cover Their Tracks” and it is an excellent place to learn about track identification (not just identifying tracks, but “how” to identify tracks). If you have Facebook, I highly recommend it. No one is allowed to suggest an ID without listing “why” they are providing that ID. I have learned a lot just following the page.
On my android phone, I have to come back to the observation after uploading to do annotations. From my list, I can click on an observation and scroll down to the annotations (don’t click to edit). If I click to edit the observation, the annotations do not show. Hope this helps.
Much the same on my iPhone.
