Animal Tracking III: The Rabbit and the Owl

In our most recent issue of Heritage, Jason Taylor mentioned seeing a photo of the tracks left in the snow from the contest between a rabbit and an owl. So I retrieved that photo and offer it today as part of my ongoing series about tracking.

The setting here is a regularly mown wide firebreak between a prairie planting in the background and a tall dense hedgerow immediately behind you.

The tracks across the upper part of the scene are those of a mature rabbit, racing from left to right, as demonstrated by the wide spacing. As he turns in an arc toward you, he is digging in so hard, to make the turn into the bushes, that his feet throw out little tufts of snow to the outside. Suddenly he makes an abrupt turn to his left, and the tail prints of a large owl are at the turn. But the rabbit tracks continue on their way unmolested, showing that rabbit escaped just as the owl touched down. Now the owl has a problem, having no capture to arrest her powerdive, and she is about to crash into the hedgerow immediately behind you. In the left foreground, you can see her footprints where she touched down firmly and then pushed off to launch herself above the bushes. The whole scene was probably enacted in about two seconds.

Why do I think it was an owl? I walked this route in early twilight the evening before, and this scene was not there. Then I walked this firebreak again early the next morning and there it was. I looked for a lost feather for confirming identification, but no luck.

Amongst the big owls, either barred owls or great horned owls – but not both in the same year – tend to show up at our place, and the literature indicates that they are competitors. This little event occurred decades ago and I don’t remember which species was dominating our area that year.

The mown firebreak offers no cover and is a place where rabbits need to be extra cautious. This same firebreak is where owl nearly caught supper and where she is likely to revisit. Therefore, I revisited a few days later and there was a new story in the snow.