Tracks, Nests & Outdoor Clues
Footprints, nests, and other traces animals leave
Animals move through most yards every night, and tracks and nests are how you find out who. A line of prints in mud or snow can be read by counting toes and measuring stride; a shallow, fur-lined depression in the lawn is almost always a rabbit nest with a mother who returns at dawn and dusk. These guides help you identify the visitor from what it left behind — and explain why the right response to most nests is to leave them exactly where they are.
Tracks, Nests & Outdoor Clues guides
Animal Burrow Under Your Shed? Who's Living There A burrow entrance under your shed most likely belongs to a groundhog, skunk, rabbit, or rat, and the hole itself usually names the digger: groundhogs leave a 10–12 inch opening with a fan of excavated dirt, skunks announce themselves by smell, and rat holes are only 2–3 inches across. Before evicting anyone, check the calendar — from spring into midsummer there may be babies down there, and sealing them in creates a far worse problem than the burrow. Read the guide → Animal Tracks in Snow: Identify Your Winter Visitors Animal tracks in snow are most often left by rabbits, squirrels, deer, foxes, or a neighborhood cat or dog. Fresh snow is the best tracking surface your yard will ever offer, and the trail pattern — bounding sets, paired feet, heart shapes, or a dead-straight line — usually identifies the animal faster than any single print. Read the guide → Bird's Nest in Your Porch Wreath? Here's Who Moved In A nest tucked into your front-door wreath was most likely built by a house finch or an American robin, two species famous for choosing porch decorations. If the nest holds eggs or chicks, federal law protects it — moving or destroying an active native bird nest violates the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. The good news: the whole event, from first egg to empty nest, usually takes only four to five weeks. Read the guide → Feathers Scattered in Your Yard: What Happened Here? A patch of scattered feathers in your yard usually means one of three things: a hawk plucked a caught bird there, a cat made a kill, or a bird is simply molting. The pattern is the evidence — a dense circle of feathers with no body points to a hawk's plucking post, feathers plus a partially eaten bird points to a cat or a fox, and scattered single feathers appearing over days is just late-summer molt. Read the guide → Grass-Lined Nest in Your Lawn? It's Probably Baby Rabbits A shallow, grass-and-fur-lined depression in your lawn is almost always an eastern cottontail rabbit nest, and it is very rarely abandoned — mother rabbits visit only at dawn and dusk to avoid leading predators to their babies. A nest of speckled eggs on open ground, by contrast, usually belongs to a killdeer or another ground-nesting bird. In both cases the right move is to leave it alone and protect the spot for a few weeks. Read the guide → Mud Nests Under Your Eaves: Swallows, Wasps, or Daubers? Mud structures under your eaves were built either by swallows — barn or cliff swallows, which are federally protected birds — or by mud dauber wasps, which are docile solitary insects. A gray papery umbrella-shaped comb is neither: that's a paper wasp nest, and it's the only one of the three that stings defensively. Identify the builder before you reach for a scraper, because the right response is different for each. Read the guide → Pile of Sticks in a Tree: Squirrel Drey or Bird Nest? A large clump of sticks or leaves high in a tree is usually either a squirrel drey — a messy ball of leaves and twigs wedged into a fork — or a platform nest built by a hawk or crow. The quickest tell is the material and shape: dreys are leafy and roughly spherical, while raptor and crow nests are flatter platforms of bare sticks. Winter, when the leaves drop, is when most homeowners suddenly notice them. Read the guide → Small Animal Tracks in Your Yard: How to Read Them Small animal tracks in your yard most often belong to rabbits, squirrels, raccoons, opossums, skunks, or a neighborhood cat or dog. Counting the toes, checking whether claw marks show, and looking at how the prints are grouped will identify the visitor faster than the shape of any single print. Read the guide →
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