Recognising Tracks and Signs of British Mammals

Reading the woodland like a detective

Most of Britain's mammals are nocturnal, shy, or both. You might walk a favourite wood for years without seeing a badger, an otter or a dormouse — yet they are almost certainly there, leaving a trail of evidence behind them. Learning to read that evidence is one of the most rewarding skills a naturalist can develop, and it turns an ordinary walk into a slow, attentive conversation with the landscape.

All you need is a pair of wellies, a notebook and patience. Dawn and dusk are best, and the margins of a wood — muddy gateways, stream banks, field edges — are where the stories are written most clearly.

Footprints in mud, snow and soft ground

Tracks are easiest to read in wet mud, fresh snow or the silt left along a riverbank after the water has dropped. Check established paths first, then the edges of puddles and the approach to any hole in the ground.

• Otter: a large, broad pad with five toes and often a visible web. Usually found on sand or silt beside water, sometimes with a dragging tail mark.
• Badger: five toes in a wide, almost kidney-shaped print, with a broad pad and long claw marks in front of the toes. The rolling gait leaves prints in a slightly staggered line.
• Deer: two clean, cloven hooves, pointed at the front. Fallow and red deer leave larger prints than roe or muntjac. On soft ground the dew claws may show behind.
• Fox: four toes, a narrow triangular pad and claws that usually register. Dogs leave a similar print but tend to wander; foxes walk in a straighter, more purposeful line.

Measure the print, count the toes and note whether claws are present. Those three details will solve most identifications.

Droppings: the unglamorous goldmine

Droppings are often the most reliable sign of all, because they are left in predictable places and persist for days or weeks.

• Otter spraint: dark, tarry and often full of fish bones and scales. It has a surprisingly pleasant, musky smell — sometimes compared to jasmine or hay — and is usually left on a prominent stone beside water.
• Badger latrines: shallow scrapes in the ground, often dug on paths or boundaries, containing several dark, sausage-shaped droppings.
• Fox scats: twisted and tapering to a point, often left on a stone, log or path junction, and may contain fur, feathers and fruit stones.
• Deer droppings: dark, oval pellets, usually pointed at one end and dimpled at the other, left singly rather than in heaps.
• Hedgehog droppings: dark and shiny, packed with the remains of beetles and other insects.

Setts, holts and other homes

A badger sett is unmistakable once you know what you are looking at: a series of large, oval holes, often on a slope in well-drained soil, with substantial spoil heaps outside and well-worn paths connecting them. Look for latrines and bedding — dry grass, bracken or leaves — dragged nearby, and for scratching posts at the base of trees.

Otter holts are more discreet, often tucked under the roots of a riverside tree. Entrances are usually larger than they need to be, and there is often a slide or a well-worn run down to the water. Water voles dig small burrows in the banks of slow-moving streams, and you will often find their feeding stations nearby: neat piles of grass stems cut at a forty-five degree angle.

Never put your hand into a hole. To judge whether a sett is occupied, look for fresh soil, footprints or droppings at the entrance rather than probing inside.

Nuts and cones tell their own story

Autumn is the best time to search for gnawed hazelnuts under coppiced trees and hedgerows, and the pattern of damage is wonderfully diagnostic.

• Dormouse: a smooth, round hole with a neat inner rim and no tooth marks on the shell — the classic dormouse sign, worth reporting to your local records centre.
• Wood mouse: a round hole but with clear, parallel tooth marks around the edge.
• Squirrel: the nut is usually split or bitten into a jagged, irregular hole.
• Bank vole: a larger, more ragged hole, often with the shell still intact around it.

Squirrels also strip the scales from pine cones, leaving a bare spindle with scales still attached at the base — quite different from the shredded cones left by wood mice.

Fieldcraft that keeps wildlife wild

Every sign you find is a privilege, and a reminder that you are a visitor in someone else's home. Keep your distance from setts, holts, dens and nests, especially between February and July when young animals are present. Never shine a torch directly into a hole or block an entrance, and resist the urge to move logs or stones to see what is underneath.

Badgers and their setts are protected by law, and it is an offence to disturb them. If you suspect a sett has been interfered with, contact your local wildlife trust rather than investigating yourself. Take photographs, note the location and date, and leave everything exactly as you found it.

The more carefully you observe, the more you will see. A single muddy gateway, read properly, can tell you who passed through in the last few days and where they were going — and that quiet knowledge is what makes a woodland walk unforgettable.