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Big Learning >Identifying Animal Tracks and Trees

Identifying Animal Tracks and Trees

My son keeps picking up leaves, and I’m kicking myself for never learning to identify any but oak and maple. So I was thrilled and relieved to come upon What Tree is It?. The site lets you identify trees by leaf, fruit (like the acorn), or by name. You might need a twig with a few leaves on it to get through the identification process, but at the end you are rewarded with a page that shows you several photographs of your leaf and the name of your tree.

As we explore the autumn woods we’re also finding quite a few animal tracks. We love our track book, Tracking and the Art of Seeing by Paul Rezendes, but the backpack was getting heavy with all the field guides. To the rescue comes the Peterson Flash Guides (Animal Tracks), a laminated, fold-out guide that includes tracks of over a hundred common animals. The Flash Guide Series is available at the Roger Tory Peterson Institute's online nature store at http://www.withoutbricks.com/rtpi. The guides are also available in science/nature-oriented bookstores.