Barr Hammock, Jan 28 - canine prints?

While biking on a dirt road in the Barr we came across some paw prints and scratch marks in the wet sand. Bruce thinks they are feline prints, while I think they are canine prints.

Evidently, the unknown carnivore braced its front paws while "scratching off" with its back paws. This is classic male canine territorial behavior. I am unaware whether felines do this, but have never seen them do so. The front paws have their "heels" dug in, which I think explains why its claws don't show.

The photos make it look like the prints are more rounded, like a feline, but I remember commenting at the time that the prints were more elongated. In this case, the photo is misleading.

We did not get down on our hands and knees and sniff the bushes beside the prints for scent, but I don't know what a positive hit would have done except to tell us that an unknown animal had indeed urinated on the shrubbery. Likewise, we did not collect plaster casts of the prints. Any ideas?

Jan 28, 2008 - Barr Hammock

Yesterday Bruce and I parked his truck in a little hidey-hole and rode our mt bikes into the Barr Hammock property owned by Alachua County (FL). We ditched the bikes to walk over to an interesting blob on our aerial photos, thinking it might be a cool ravine with exposed rock and perhaps some unusual ferns or saprophytic orchids. Nope. It turned out to be a bayhead (seepage forest) that just got our feet wet. It was cold yesterday.

The picture of me on the fallen magnolia also shows the small semi-permanent stream draining the bayhead.

Despite the cold, this is the time of year for several Florida frog species to mate: the cricket frog, leopard frog, spring peeper and common and ornate chorus frogs. Of the 5, only the cricket frog serenaded us this day, and Bruce got a good pic of one and another pic of a green treefrog (both displayed). I am always amazed that frogs can be so active in such cold weather.

Back on the dirt road we went to look for another blob to explore, but the property’s woods are just shadows of what they might become under non-profit conservation management practices in another few decades. Plus, we got a late start and it was getting late. We’ll go back in 20 years – we’ll only be 79yo then, altho we might have to invent off-road wheelchairs in order to do so.
So, back to Bruce’s hammock land, I built a cheery fire while he prepared dinner, rubbing spices into chicken wings and a blob of pork, and wrapping sweet potatoes in aluminum foil. Aaahhhh, beer and pepper wings, a deadly combination!