Start with the ground beneath your feet

Tracking is less about luck and more about knowing where to look. After rain, head for muddy paths, gateways, woodland rides and the soft edges of fields. Snow, wet sand and damp clay hold the sharpest impressions. Early morning is best: low sun rakes across the surface and throws every ridge and toe pad into relief. Walk slowly, keep your shadow out of the way, and resist the urge to step on the very prints you want to study. A notebook, hand lens and tape measure will turn a stroll into a survey.

Footprints: toes, claws and gait

Most mammal tracks fall into two useful groups: four-toed and five-toed. Dogs and foxes show four toes, a triangular heel pad and usually visible claw marks. A fox print is neat and narrow, often placed almost directly in line as it trots. A dog’s print is broader, messier, and the claws tend to splay outwards. Cats also show four toes, but no claws, and the heel pad has a distinctive three-lobed front edge.

Badgers have five toes and a broad, kidney-shaped heel pad, with long, powerful claws that often register in the mud. Otters leave five-toed, webbed prints beside rivers and lochs, sometimes with a drag mark from their tail. Deer show two neat hooves: roe deer prints are small and heart-shaped, fallow are larger and rounder, and muntjac are tiny, almost dainty. Rabbits and hares have four toes with furry soles, and their tracks often look like a small, grouped cluster.

• Walk: a slow, even pace with regular spacing.
• Trot: a two-two rhythm, often used by foxes and dogs.
• Bound: back feet landing ahead of front feet, typical of squirrels and rabbits.
• Gallop: a fast, stretched pattern with long gaps.

Measure the width and length of every clear print. A fox print is usually around 4–5 cm long; a badger’s can reach 7–8 cm. Bird tracks show three toes forward and one back; herons and crows leave the boldest.

Droppings, pellets and spraint

Droppings are a goldmine. Fox scats are twisted and tapering, often left on a stone, path or molehill, and they frequently contain hair, bone or fruit pips. Badgers use shallow pits or latrines, sometimes on a well-worn path, and their droppings are sloppy, dark and full of seeds or worm remains. Otter spraint is left on prominent rocks or bridge ledges; it is often full of fish scales and has a faint, sweet, musky smell. Rabbit droppings are round, dry and plentiful, while deer leave oval pellets with a slight dimple at one end. Hedgehog droppings are dark, shiny and packed with beetle wing cases.

Owl pellets are not droppings but regurgitated bundles of fur and bone. They are grey, felted and often found beneath a favourite roost. Pick them apart with a stick, not your fingers, and wash your hands afterwards.

Nuts, cones and chewed clues

Autumn and winter are perfect for reading feeding signs. A hazelnut gnawed by a grey squirrel has a round hole with neat, parallel tooth marks around the rim. A wood mouse leaves a smaller, smoother hole, while a bank vole tends to leave jagged, uneven edges. Pine cones tell a similar story: squirrels tear the scales away raggedly, leaving a messy core, while mice nibble the scales neatly, leaving the central spindle.

Look at twigs, too. Deer browse leaves a ragged, torn end, because they lack upper front teeth and pull rather than cut. Rabbits make a clean, angled cut, like a miniature pair of secateurs, and hares leave a larger, coarser version. Stripped bark low down may point to deer; stripped bark higher up often means grey squirrels.

Feathers, fur and feeding stations

Feathers are fragile but revealing. A sparrowhawk plucks its prey at a regular plucking post, leaving breast feathers sheared off and small bones neatly picked. An owl usually swallows prey whole and later produces a pellet, so you may find fur and bones rather than a scatter of feathers. Foxes cache food and leave feathers near earths or under hedges. Fur snagged on barbed wire, brambles or fence posts can be identified by colour, length and texture: badger hairs are coarse and banded, fox hairs are fine and reddish, and otter fur is dense and sleek.

In the garden, watch for hulls under feeders, nibbled fat balls, and the distinctive damage of a grey squirrel chewing through plastic. Hedgehogs leave small, dark droppings on lawns and paths, often with shiny beetle cases. Foxes and badgers use garden lawns as latrines or foraging grounds, especially after rain.

Reading your local patch

Choose a regular route: a muddy bridleway, a woodland edge, a park hedge, a riverbank. Walk it after rain, in snow, and at dawn or dusk. Note what you find, where you found it, the weather and the date. Sketch the prints, measure them, and photograph them beside a coin or ruler for scale. Over time you will build a picture of who shares your patch: the fox that trots the same line, the badger that uses the same latrine, the roe deer that browses the brambles.

Always keep a respectful distance from setts, nests and resting animals, and never disturb a trackway just to get a better look. The best trackers are patient, quiet and curious. The more you look, the more the countryside begins to read like a story written in mud, snow and chewed nutshells.