Tracking Quizzes

Quiz #44 - Question

Photos and text by Brian Booth

Habitat: The hot, arid mountains of the Greek island of Naxos, land of delicious seafood, figs, apricots, red wine and feta cheese.

Time of year: July.

You are on a walk on a dirt road to an ancient windmill atop a small mountain above town.

It’s a broiling hot summer day at noon. There are animal tracks on the road. Can you see them?

If not, take a closer look. Can you see anything yet? (It’s hard to see tracks at high noon).

Try an even closer look. There are some barely-visible tracks in the dust on the hard-packed dirt. It is hard to see every track in this photo, but the stride is 10 inches, and the trail width is 6 to 7 inches.

Intrigued, you bend down to examine individual tracks. They are very faint (Photos 44F / 44G / 44H). The tracks measure about 2¼ inch long by 1¾ inch wide, but they are not very clear. This is pretty tough.
If you are ready to guess, click here. If you are energetic and want to climb to the windmill for more clues, then carry on...

Here you are at the windmill, with a view of the land. You are hot, tired, and scraped up from the thorny plants – if you are ready to turn around and make a guess now, click here. Otherwise, if you want to walk further down the road to search for more clues, continue on...

Good for you, going the extra kilometer in search of more clues! You find a single track in good quality dust with better definition ...

... along with some scat.

Quiz #44 - Answer