Windwolf
Crex Meadows ... Wildlife on the Meadows ... Gray Wolf
The Crex Pack
On the east side of Crex Meadows later this summer, more scat lay on the road. This was far from where I had become accustomed to seeing signs of wolves, so I pulled over to investigate. A large sand exposure was nearby, so I wandered towards what would become another first for me. Wolf Pup Tracks!
The picture on the left shows the length of the tracks. The tracks are moving to the south. What it looks like to me is, two adult wolves returned to where pups were waiting.
The scratching marks on the far left side of the picture is where a pup was jumping up on one of the returning adults, hopping along in an excited greeting.
Judging by the size of the two adult prints, it appears the greeting was being given to the female of the pair.
A very close look will also reveal that the adult being greeted took half steps compared to the 2nd (and larger) tracks on the right, which were also signs I used in determining whether this was a greeting and not pups playing together.
Clicking on the image will bring a full sized picture into a new window or tab. The size of the picture is 380KB.
The picture on the right was taken in the same sand area but shows a different aspect of the vastness of the prints in this spot.
The top of the picture is facing east and on an uphill portion of this sand exposure area.
What I think occured here is speculation but it is based on my limited knowledge of wolf behavior, supplanted with an extensive knowledge of dog behavior.
Looking at the top of the picture, you can see a digging area. It seems a pup was digging in the sand and a second pup came up and they began to play.
A little bit down from this digging point, you can see what looks like finger dig marks, too big to be indivual toe marks from even an adult. There is also no toe nail marks. I think this is where pup elbows were digging into the ground.
Additionally, in the area between the top dig marks and the bottom dig marks, the sand between looks flattened. The dig marks are not as defined, indicating to me that a pup was rolled in the sand, or pushed down on its belly or back by a littermate.
You can also see on the left side of the picture some adult tracks. The sand being tossed is towards these adults which would be the opposite way the sand would be tossed by a greeting pup.
Clicking on the image will bring a larger picture up in a new tab or window.
The larger image shows pup tracks better than the small picture. There are at least 12 pup prints in the sands, of varied clarity.
If you cant see the elbow or flattened sand areas, I have circled them HERE for comparison with the big picture.
You would think that with all those tracks, finding a good set of an adult next to a pup would be easy. Well, it was not easy.
This set of tracks shows a very hard to see adult track at the bottom. Its pad is pretty defined as are the outsides toes. Its the top toes that are the most vague but if you look you can see the nail marks in the sand. This makes the adult footprint 5 inches long.
The pup print on top is better seen. Pup prints have those very sharp puppy claws which are begining to wear out allowing the more adult nail to begin showing at the base of the nail point. The pup track is right around 3 inches now.
I found two clearly different sized pup tracks in the sand this day. I can say there are at least two surviving pups at this point.
The above tracks pictures were taken September 20, 2007
October 4, 2007 I returned to Crex Meadows.
The Meadows were crowded with people looking at the large numbers of Sandhill Cranes staging in the area. It took me a while to evade the crowd (a crowd being 3 cars of visitors in sight).
On the north side of Crex is a sandy road which provides good photograph opportunities most trips. I looked and saw no one had used this trail. No vehicle tracks since the last rain. The road itself is around 1/2 mile long and straight.
There are a couple of dips and rises where an animal can remain invisible to the travelers on the main road.
No more than 20 feet from the main road, I came across the first set of pup tracks. This trail is two wheel ruts and on one side were pup tracks traveling north and in the other rut were tracks headed south.
Over a slight rise in the road I came across an area that had heavy digging going on. The pup whos tracks I was following explored this area also. It was just south of here I came across a 2nd set of tracks.
From this point onwards south, the tracks in the road appeared to be two pups.
Based on what was going on with the tracks and the other signs, the pups seemed to be alone. One had wandered closer to the road than the other. The digging marks appeared to be the actions of a badger a few days before and the pups explored a bit, quickly becoming bored with this.
Then something happened.
The pup tracks had wandered a bit. I could see points where they had stopped and began walking again. Suddenly, the two animals broke into a run.
The pups were running south, one animal in each rut. Most of the strides were between 4 and 6 feet in length. One pup had a stride reaching over 6 feet long.
It appeared the pup on the east side of the road was further ahead when the pups broke into a run. The animal on the west side had a longer path of running, and had the longest strides.
There were parts of the tracks on the east side animal where the strides were not as long, then suddenly they became broader, indicating to me the animal tried to speed up.
What I imagine is the pup on the west side of the road had overtaken its littermate and now the east side pup was trying to keep up.
I can only guess as to what had prompted the pups to break into this run to the south. Because there were no driving tracks, I dont think it was caused by a car, but there was one turn around mark at the trails begining that may have been someone turning around when the pups were on the road.
People do shine deer at night to see whats going on around Crex Meadows (*Note that if you do this, you may spark the interest of law enforcement checking up to ensure your not poaching). So it may be someone shined the field looking for glowing eyes in the dark.
The parents may have returned to the pups area and made a call to them. The inspired pups would run for their parents, depending on what call was sounded.
Clicking on the image to the right will bring up a pasted together shot of one long stride where I attempted to measure. Its a series of 6 photos where I tried to paste them together to show how long the strides were. It is also one of the longer strides I found. While not scientifically accurate, I believe it gives a viewer a good idea of what I encountered on this particular sandy road in Crex Meadows.
Reading up on wolf tracks, the information indicates that the front foot is the larger foot. It appears this stride is accurate in display, with the back feet at the bottom of the picture and the front feet are the two top prints.
My apologies for the jagged look. I decided to leave this as is so people can see where I pasted the images together.
Return to page one here