"Animal Trackers in My Soup"

[mhardy6647]

(With apologies to Shirley Temple... yes, I am old... although not that old)

Preface: I am horrible at identifying animal tracks!
but...
We had some interesting ones this morning along the driveway. Looks, to me, like two or even three individuals. Individual what is the question!








looks (to me) like two of 'em met up and one took a seat while they chatted...





You can see more photos of the tracks, FWIW, at: https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjCEZh8
What do all y'all think?
The tracks appeared overnight.
I thought of bobcat/housecat (FWIW)
We rarely see regular ol' cats; we do see bobcats.

I couldn't find a good-old internet-based website to match tracks (see the "old" comment above!). Reluctantly, I tried an online AI app thingy , on my 'device' and it came up with... snowshoe hare with 90% confidence on two of the photos I tried. On the third photo I tried, it suggested red fox (80%) and domestic cat (65%).
It only let me do three photos before saying that'll be $4.99 a month, so I gave up at that point. :#
All y'all won't charge me $4.99 a month... right?
Thanks for any thoughts and suggestions!

N.B. "Snowshoe hare" is not utterly impossible, but I am an Occam's Razor kinda guy, and I really don't think it's all that likely. That said, they tend to be most active at night and/or in the early evening/early morning (and, mind you, the length of daylight here is about 9 hours this time of year). We've never seen any kind of (wild) lagomorphs around these parts in 12-ish years of living here. I was thinkin' bobcat was most likely... but red fox (and even grey foxes) are pretty common in the area.
Plenty of domestic cats around, of course, but we hardly ever see one roaming through our yard.

 

[mhardy6647]

Oh. The other, very obvious tracks in some of the images are from a 2016 Honda CR-V EX-L. Pretty sure of that ID.

 

[Multicore]

I want to say bunny wabbits. Because I like saying that. But I think cats looks like a better fit. Are they too small for coyote?

The snow last night was much enjoyed by our dogs on our dawn hike in Boston's western burbs. They zoomed and romped and rolled and chased. Lucy disappeared on the hill as she often does I presume to see the coyote who lives there, whom we have seen close up a couple of times and is surprisingly big.

 

[tineared]

I would guess they're from a fox
Then again, I live in S Florida...

 

[Tassin]

Must be a Bigfoot. An infant obviously.

 

[pjug]

I don't know if any are clear enough to tell. Nail prints would probably mean fox or coyote. The clearest one in the photos looks like a fox to me (no expert).

https://www.bear-tracker.com/caninevsfeline.html.

 

[mhardy6647]

Fox is fairly likely, although I haven't seen one in the yard for a couple of years. Plenty in the neighborhood, though.
House cat's not impossible, of course, but we very, very rarely see them here.
We've never seen any flavor of lagomorph here - they're just not common in this vicinity (not just our yard).
I don't think they're big enough, nor canid enough, to be from a coyote -- although., for better or worse, there're plenty of those around here.

Must be a Bigfoot. An infant obviously.

Why didn't I think of that?!
B)

 

[Timcognito]

Bobcat you photographed. If you can scale from your photo and compare.

 

[mhardy6647]

FWIW, mammalian backyard critters here include, in no particular order:

coyote:

https://flic.kr/p/kSw33u

https://flic.kr/p/pA6fG7

bobcat:

https://flic.kr/p/mHTBPc

deersies:

https://flic.kr/p/oHpwxB

https://flic.kr/p/2pKLFBd

fox:

https://flic.kr/p/2mYNwzf

(despite the coat color, we believe this to have been a grey fox, based on the black-tipped tail)

porcupine:

https://flic.kr/p/2osGpmj

bearsie:

https://flic.kr/p/nVQT8K

(they're a-snooze now)

whistlepig: (ahem, groundhog, woodchuck, marmot)

https://flic.kr/p/sqZtRr

skunk:


(or, possibly, Phil Spector's wig?)

We do get squirrels, chipmunks, raccoons and opossums, too (albeit mostly inwarmer weather) -- but for whatever reason, I've never photographed any of either. We have seen moose tracks in the neighborhood, and mooses have been observed in other folks' fields, but we haven't ever seen one here... yet.

 

[Tassin]

Lovely place you live in. Apparently, you live where I would love to live.

 

[Timcognito]

(or, possibly, Phil Spector's wig?)

I was thinking Don King

 

[mhardy6647]

I was thinking Don King
View attachment 500162

one of those two! I never could keep 'em straight.

 

[xanalog]

(With apologies to Shirley Temple... yes, I am old... although not that old)

But are you 'old enough' to remember Roseanne Roseannadanna?
I had such an episode, when I saw:

I thought you meant:

"neeeeveeer mmmind!"

 

[mhardy6647]

"What's all this about 'too much violins on television'?"

Actually Emily Litella, but close enough.

 

[bloodshoteyed]

house- or maybe bobcat look the closest to me

NatureTracking

Tools for Identifying Animal Tracks, Photos of Animal Tracks, and Wildlife Tracker Certifications.

naturetracking.com